CycleMal: Tour Taiwan Day 7: Kaohsiung to Fenggang

This morning after breakfast Kenny and I put our bikes back together. This involved fitting a new bike rack to Kenny's bike and retightening the bar end shifter of my bike. Forty minutes later everything was rideable and we put the bikes into the luggage storage space at the wonderful Kaohsiung Kindness Hotel. Here's a picture of Kenys bike fully assembled. Note the Giant brand 700x32 tyres on a Trek Cyclocross bike. My bike remains in the bag. Kenny actually admitted later in the day that the tyres were (and I quote) "not too bad". It's only a matter of time before he starts liking Cannondales.

I was trying to pump up Kenny's tyres with my small frame pump when a guy from the hotel came out and gave us a track pump to use. That saved some time and effort i can tell you. Thirty minutes later we were ready to hit the road. Here's Kenny with fully loaded bike.

We started off looking for a bike shop to buy a few tubes and a new pump that can take CO2 canisters. Apparently my pump is so last century. Yeah, tell that to the security guards at Taoyuan airport on the way home when you try to board a plane with potentially dangerous gas canisters. After 11/2 kms towards the city I gave up and turned back. Then I found a shop one block from our hotel. Kenny gave me a hard time over that. I did not include the addtional 3 kms in today's total because I reset my computer.

The ride out of Kaohsiung was long and it seemed to take forever to get out of the city. I could tell from the first few pedal strokes I was not going to have a great ride today. My stomach was still a bit 'iffy' and my legs felt lethargic. A week or more off the bike had not helped. I held out hope that maybe I would come good later in the day but it was not to be. So today I watched the world go by at 20 kms an hour. The traffic out of town was pretty heavy and it seemed like we had to stop at an intersection every couple of hundred metres. The pollution was pretty bad today too. The Taiwanese say it comes over from the mainland. But Kaohsiung has some serious industry and at least some of it must be locally produced.

Intersection in Kaohsiung

After 20 kms we stopped for an early lunch. At a 7-Eleven of course. Kenny had a sandwich and some sushi. I had some fruit cake and some sprite. I was still not able to take on much food. Darned tummy bug. Another 20 kms down the road, another stop. More food (at least for Kenny) and lots of fluids. It was nearly 30 degrees and humidity high.

At last we hit the coast. Kenny took this following me. Then we chanced upon a great coffee shop and ordered iced coffee. The view across the Taiwan strait was beautiful.

Pictures from coffee shop

Twelve kms down the road we rolled into Fenggang and into the Long An Hotel. The owner took great care of us and showed us where to go for dinner. He personally took us to the restarant and helped us order dinner. It was a great meal of soup, noodles and green vegetables. We couldn't eat it all and the ladies running the restaurant looked worried. We assured them it was lovely food and that we were just full. My stomach must be on the mend because I was able to eat about a third of the meal. The Taiwanese people are amazing. The bill was $340 but they refused to take more than $300. That's about $20 Australian. A guy sitting in the restaurant told me his wife, one of the ladies, owns it and I told him he was a very lucky man to have such a nice wife. He agreed enthusiastically. I am soooo smooth.

Pictures from dinner