{"id":5266,"date":"2026-03-18T08:51:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/?p=5266"},"modified":"2026-04-22T02:14:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:14:58","slug":"260318-not-the-best-of-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/260318-not-the-best-of-days\/","title":{"rendered":"260318-Not the best of days"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made an early enough start that the breakfast place down the street hadn’t opened yet. I headed out, comfortable and correct that I’d find another one in reasonably short order. While wild dogs–alone or in packs–litter Taiwan, this morning I had to pass different guardians to leave my AirBnb.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The ride into Taitung was short– only 15 km. I’d poorly chosen a hostel that did not permit any type of early check-in, so I spent the day wandering the streets and parks of Taitung.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mostly a kind of meh day. Happens sometimes.<\/p>\n

Low-flyer fighter jets were almost constantly overhead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While I had planned to stay in Taitung for two days, I spent the day wandering this smaller town, so I’m heading out tomorrow. This makes the second time I’ve changed a reservation with success despite being non-refundable, just by being polite. For the first time in a while, the forecast shows rain tomorrow, in the early afternoon.<\/p>\n

Another reason to head out tomorrow is that in theory Alex and I will meet back up! He’s coming in from Green Island via ferry, and not leaving Taitung until noon. With that kind of head start I might actually manage to get to our hostel before him. My plan is to leave Taitung early and hopefully beat the rain.<\/p>\n

That won’t save me the day after tomorrow, which shows more rain. Problem for future Rick. I still have a couple extra days built into my schedule. I also still have to decide whether to cycle (and\/or which sections) the Suhua Highway (Provincial Highway 9), infamous for landslides, narrow sections, and dangerous cliffs along the eastern coast. A 38.8 km, largely tunnel-based improvement project was completed in 2021 to improve safety and travel times; a lot of the data on-line is outdated.<\/p>\n

As I sat in the common area, a woman arrived to check-in, and spent the entire time loudly complaining about the check-in process. American of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made an early enough start that the breakfast place down the street hadn’t opened yet. I headed out, comfortable and correct that I’d find another one in reasonably short order. While wild dogs–alone or in packs–litter Taiwan, this morning I had to pass different guardians to leave my AirBnb. The ride into Taitung was … Continue reading “260318-Not the best of days”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5266"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5376,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266\/revisions\/5376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}