I left early; early enough that the bike path hadn’t opened yet. The climb out from the lake wasn’t too bad and most of the next 30 km were a 7% descent. It almost made the climbing a couple of days ago in the rain worth it. Almost. I did keep in mind the speed warnings from the police yesterday.
The next 30 km were on one of the national bicycle routes, alongside a highway. Still a wide bicycle (scooter) lane, but a lot of traffic passing by nonetheless.
I stopped at a small temple to eat lunch.
Most of the last 30 km was small back roads, both because it’s where the GPS routed, and because I was tired of being next to a highway.
I arrived at the hostel just before the check-in time at 3:00 p.m.
The weather today was too good; even regularly applying sunscreen I picked up some sunburn.
After I got myself cleaned up and laundry done, I headed out to explore the city.
I found the Taiwan Museum of Tile (started because someone picked up a hobby to talk to his girlfriend about).
and then went to Alishan Forest Railway Garage Park – a collection of old diesel and steam engines and railway cars.
Then I headed back towards the hostel to explore the Wenhua Road Night Market, a smaller-scale version of the night market in Taiwan.
The police officers had recommended the lantern festival here in Chiayi, but apparently it’s hosted in a small town to the west of here.
This hostel falls into the category of more institutional and less character. I picked it because of the high rating combined with the low cost, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention. The hostel for tomorrow should be both nicer and with more character.
I was thinking about spending the next two nights in Tainan. However, it’s not that far and I should get there relatively early.