Name: Cycling in Taiwan: Taipei to Kaohsiung via the East Coast
Uploaded: 2018-05-19T11:48:08.000Z
Duration: 14 min 34 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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Finally managed to buy a bike after a
little bit of drama

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change of plans back and forth and I
ended up with a rusty $60... oh $50 really

$50 bike which, fingers crossed will get
me all the way south to Kaohsiung.

Biked up to Fengguizui lookout which is about
600 meters elevation.  Can't see anything

from the lookout here
Going to hit the road again get some food

in my belly and maybe a little bit of
warmth as well.

last night but I'm fresh and dry now.   Late start to the

day today because it was raining again
this morning.  Plan is to head from where

are now which is Ruifang, and make my
way around the coast in the direction of Yilan.

If there were a prize for a country with
the most impressive abandoned buildings

Taiwan is kinda cheating because even
the inhabited buildings often look abandoned

these specific buildings, I
really have no idea what they are. I kind

of just assume that they're all
abandoned button factories

Couple hundred meters from the little
village of Bitou.  I guess this is the only

spot where they were able to find space to
build a school because it's either that

or they just wanted to have the best
view in town. I'm sure the kids here get

quite a few days off for typhoons
because it is a very exposed.

Next door from the school is a cemetery. 
 New and the old, neighbors here in Bitou.

Well, so far riding around Taiwan has
proven to be just about the best idea ever.

the Lanyang Plain, which is a beautiful
area surrounding Yilan.

Sort of interspersed housing and rice paddies
surrounded by hills and then the coast.

Came across this dead fish on the side
of the road. Not sure if it's jumped up

from the rice paddies. Could be good
eating still but I think I'll give this one a miss.

Just taking it super cruisey
today making my way around the rice

Made my way through the port city of Su'ao to the Tofu Cape.

This is more or less where I'm going to finish up for
today. I've got a little bit of

backtracking to do just to get back to
where I'm going to stay but there's a

nice little local - well what looks like a
local hangout that I've encountered here.

Pretty cool beach down there and looks
like a nice little spot

Killer bargain on accommodation in Su'ao.
Unfortunately just after checking in I

managed to lock myself out of the room
and I had to call the owners to drive

back from wherever she is at the moment,
so that was a pretty embarrassing start

but yeah awesome... So I've got the massage chair here, I got the washing machine

outside getting me sorted for tomorrow.
Tonnes of space so pretty happy here.

I'm going to chill out and rest up for
tomorrow.

little bit of height above Su'ao so
I'm making my way on a section of road

that is super quiet because there's a
tunnel that's been built parallel to it

kind of nervous about how much climbing
and descending I've got to do today

hopefully I can manage to get to my
destination which is the the bottom end of Taroko gorge.

Hard to get a good angle
on it but it's a pretty dramatic bit of

coast here just between Su'ao and Nan'ao.  I'm still working my way up hill looks like

I don't know maybe another hundred
meters of height to gain so just chipping away at it.

Unbelievable number
of tour buses - empty tour buses - passing

through here at the moment.  Anyway I've
got to about 400 meters I think which

should have me at a point where I've
done most of the climbing for this

section. Awesome views, real dramatic
coastline it's pretty amazing this was

ever the main route up and down the East
Coast.

Below me now is Dong'ao beach. I've just
got to continue down there and then on

the other side the road ascends again so
I'm gonna have to start climbing again.

after making my way down this nice
little stretch here.

I'm on the climb now from Dong'ao to Nan'ao.

Shirts off so it must be getting serious.

Anyway I had to pull up here because it's just one more killer view.  Turning out to be a

a pretty sweet day.  Not too hot, it's
glorious.

Getting a little bit closer to Taroko now.  Probably about 40 kilometres.

Continuing to descend now. There are a few trucks
around and it's going to be awesome when

that new freeway is built through those
on the tunnels down there. This road is

just super steep and windy.  I can't
believe that this is like the main road

going around Taiwan
Once those trucks are off the road

going through the tunnel instead it's
going to be a killer ride.  It's not too

bad in the meantime but you know less
traffic is always better.

In fairness to Taiwan, most of the island is like these
massive mountains and glorious coastline

and stuff like that and the industry
does have to go somewhere but by god

when you see it it certainly sticks out
like a sore thumb.

Day five and I'm a little above Tianxiang
now in Taroko National Park. A bit of an

up and back mission today. I am now going
to make my way back through the gorge

get a few shots of that and then head
through to Hualien.

I'm at the entrance now to this half cut tunnel going along
the hillside and halfway down there's

this entrance goes like into the
mountain.

other side of the tunnel and
there's a trail here that leads

So behind me along the cliffside there
is the so-called Swallows Grotto trail

you can see what a precarious line the
main road used to take.

I'm now a couple of hours riding south of Hualien and I've decided to get off the

main route. Definitely gonna slow things
down a little bit but that's okay, I'm

not in a rush.  It looks pretty nice, you
know, a lot of rice paddies and little

farms and things around so I hope I am
going to enjoy it.

Turns out that the detour has been pretty worthwhile
because it's taken me through

Dadongdafu Forest Park which I didn't even
know about - I didn't even notice on the map

but yeah nice place. Good views
there was like a little bike trail that

went straight through the forest.  It
makes more sense if the actual marked

cycling route that goes around the
island would take people through places

like this. Seems a little bit silly to be
down on the more industrial kind of road

below but anyway I managed to find this
or myself. There's probably a good theory

that perhaps I should not be
filming while cycling at the same time

but it's not too much traffic around...
should be okay. So I guess there's kind

of an explanation for that main cycling
route not veering off onto these wild bush paths.

Oh sealed road again. I'm
definitely putting this $50 bike of mine

Heading down through the Rift Valley
south of Ruisui going through rice

paddies and that kind of thing at the
moment so it's quite scenic.  Mountains on

both sides and basically I'm heading a
little bit further south and then I'm

going to take a road that goes through
the mountains from this rift valley

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Cycling in Taiwan: Taipei to Kaohsiung via the East Coast

apparently

awesome

stretch

basically