Around the World Ed-Venn-ture, the next 800 days

Then I wouldn't have had an excuse to crash the Survivor party.....dah!

Love it,,,,, You had me laughing this morning as l read your update.
Great pictures,
Thanks Ed.

Running down the beach at low tide



Crossing a river flowing into the ocean at low tide. I went back an hour later and this area was 3 feet deep




The sun doesn't always shine here. You can't have all the green without a little rain........and in this case - a lot of rain.



I didn't have to buy breakfast, lunch or dinner for 3 days. Here in the Philippines, if people are eating food around you, they will always offer you a plate. Just don't expect it to be all that good. This family made some pancit and shared it with me by a waterfall

Great stuff, Ed, as usual. Dang me, I kinda lost track of where you were. You slipped past me at the pizza joint. I'd have liked to have had a beer with you all. Next time, I reckon.

Panicuason hot springs.
I spent about 3 hours in these pools



A little island on a lake inside a volcanic crater, which itself is an island on lake Taal, on the island of Luzon. So it's an island on an island on an island.

I said goodbye to the Philippines after spending 6 weeks there and riding almost 7000 kms.
I decided to go to Taiwan for 2 reasons.
First, I wanted to get to my 100th country.
And second, it was $200 less expensive to fly home from Taipei than it was direct from Manila. And the crazy thing was, flying from Taipei, I had a connecting flight thru Manila, which was the exact same flight if I flew direct from Manila - all for $200 less.
Renting a bike in Taiwan is not so easy I found out. Plus it's expensive. It is certainly not easy like Thailand.
There is a tour company there called Island Rythym Tours. And there is an expat in Taipei called bike farm that rents bikes. The tour company uses older Suzuki 250's and Bike Farm has older SYM 125's. Not ideal but better than nothing. Unfortunately for me, I waited too long and neither company could get me a bike. They told me that I might be able to rent a bike in Taipei if I asked around.
So that is what I did.
I flew into Taipei and would figure it out from there.
I got into Taipei at 10 pm. Too late to do anything about the bike. Hotels around the airport were out of my budget so I found a quiet place on the floor at the airport, rolled out my inflatable sleeping mat and went to sleep. I woke up at 6 am and I was literally surrounded by people almost sitting on top of me. The airport got busy at that hour.
I sorted thru my gear, took only what I would need for 4 days in Taiwan, loaded it into my dry bag and threw it over my shoulder. Everything else, I put in my suitcase and left it at the airport.
The first thing I noticed about Taiwan was how clean and efficient everything was. They had buses leaving every 15 from the airport to the center of Taipei. Nice buses too.
Unfortunately for me, it was raining that morning. Not a good start. I was sort of regretting my decision to come to Taipei. I even was considering just living in the airport for 4 days waiting for my flight home. But I set out on the streets of Taipei in the rain looking for something with 2 wheels to rent.
I went to the info desk at the bus station and a guy told me where I could find motorcycles to rent. But when I went there, I couldn't find it. I asked the shops near by but not many people could understand English. I thought to myself, this is going to be hard. And I was burning daylight. I only had 4 days and I wanted to do a complete loop around the island. A woman in a coffee shop over head me. She spoke English and offered to help. She looked on her phone where I could rent and bike and walked me down the street to a bike repair shop. The guy had some scooters for rent but he wanted a $65 deposit that he would return to me by mail 60 days later if I didn't get any speed camera tickets. I figured I would never see that deposit money again so I would just factor it in to the price of the rental. And the price of the rental was about $30 a day for a 125 cc scooter! Ouch! That's twice as much as my cool XR150L in the Philippines.
I told the guy thanks but no thanks. I thanked that nice lady for helping me and I went off in the rain in search of another option.
I went back to the bus station and told them I couldn't find the shop they originally told me about. They gave me more exact directions this time and off I went again. When I got there, there were no bikes anywhere. I asked them same shops near by and a guy pointed to the shop next to him. I walked into that shop and it sold only lottery tickets. When I asked about bikes, they opened a door to their back room, it was loaded with scooters. Turns out, the problem was I can't read Chinese. They had a sign out front advertising the fact they rented scooters but not be able to read Chinese, you would have no idea.
This place also wanted 30 bucks a day but they didn't require a deposit. I got the price down to about $100 for the 4 days and off I went into the rain to explore Taiwan.
At that point, I was just going thru the motions. Not really looking forward to it. Not really excited about it. Not really liking my little 125 cc Yamaha scooter. I was just thinking I was going to kill 4 days and get back to California.
But that was soon going to change

Don't let us hanging Laylo

I do not know how you manage to keep telling-exciting- us about your travels, but I appreciate your efforts and the quality of your photos and writing. I have followed along since day one and enjoy your work. Thank you for entertaining!

Damn.

Riding in Taiwan is different. And I got off to a very interesting start.
First off, things are very organized and structured here. No more weaving across 4 lanes of traffic trying to get thru quickly , like I did elsewhere in SE Asia. The right lanes are for scooters and some are dedicated lanes. I liked this as it kept the cars away from the bikes. The most challenging thing was making a left turn. At many intersections in the big cities, to make a left turn on a scooter, you would have to pull into a box to the right in front of the cars waiting at the red light to go straight and when the lights change, you go straight across the intersection to complete your left turn. I hope that made sense. Actually, in the four days I was there, I am not sure even I made sense of it all.
But here's one of the most bizarre things to happen to me on the entire rtw trip.
I was riding along thru downtown Taipei, with traffic all around me. There are lots of cars, buses and scooters here but if I were to rate the traffic on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being worst, I would give Taipei about a 2. Manila was more like an 8 or 9. So Taiwan has things so well organised with excellent roads so things weren't all that bad. But I was driving thru the traffic making my way out of town and all of a sudden, I heard what sounded like air raid sirens. I sort of paid attention to it at first but just sort of ignored it as I figured it was just sort of a test or something. But then something so bizarre happened, I felt like I was in a scene from an apocalypse movie. Within about a minute after the sirens appeared, everything that moves disappeared around me. All the cars and buses on the road were gone and all the people on the street were no where to be seen. It was just me driving thru one of the most densely populated cities in the world and I was all alone. It was like the apocalypse had just happened but I was not affected by it. So now I was getting a bit worried. I started to think that the air raid siren had actually meant something. My first thought was that a Tsunami was going to hit the island. I pulled over and found a man sitting in his car. I asked him what was going on. Of course he didn't speak English but he said the word - "Wan - An".
I had no idea what that meant so I just kept going. A short time later, a police man standing next to one of the many large building lining the side of the road came over to pull me off the road. He again said Wan-an and directed me to get off my bike and come inside the nearest building and sit down. The nearest building was this Yamaha shop. There, I spoke with these guys, none of them spoke English, but with their phone and Google translate, we were able to communicate.
What I found out was that Wan-an was a annual , 30 minute anti air raid drill. And everyone that was outside was supposed to get off the streets and seek shelter inside for that half an hour. We sat there during that time and I told them about my travels and that Taiwan was my 100th country.
At precisely 2 o'clock, the drill was over and just like someone had pushed a button, everyone reappeared and the city returned to normal.
Just like a scene from the Twilight Zone, that Wan-an experience is something I will not soon forget.

I checked the weather for that day and it was suppose to rain all day that first day. My plan was to head into the center of Taiwan into the mountains. But I quickly changed plans and decided it would be best to head to the beautiful east coast instead. It rained off and on the whole way.
As I mentioned, taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, but once you get away from the crowded west coast, the mountains and the east coast are actually very sparsely populated. It was a very strange feeling to be riding in a crowded city and then turning one corner and then being in the mountains. All the traffic disappeared and it went from straight, congested roads to a winding, two lane road into the mountains. It was so nice, I didn't even mind the rain.
Then when I got to the coast, I realized just how beautiful and special this country was. Their Hwy 9 and 11 that runs the length of the island sort of reminded me of California's PCH, what I regard as still one of the best roads in the world.
But with the sun going down and it raining, I needed to find some sort of shelter. Being my first night in Taiwan, I wasn't sure what I was going to find or if I was going to find anything. I thought it might be a long, cold, wet night for me.

It was starting to get dark and the rain was still falling. I was beginning to worry that I would have trouble finding some sort of shelter that night. And even if I wanted to find a hotel, I couldn't because I didn't know what the word "hotel" looked like in Chinese characters. I scoped out this one little road off the side of the road. It was remote but there were no shelters or abandoned buildings. So I kept going. The road along the coast was beautiful. Like PCH, it wound up high on the cliffs and the surf pounced the beaches below.
But then, with perfect timing, this came into view. I don't know what it was, but it had walls and a roof. And of course a tremendous view of the coastline perched 500 feet above the ocean. It was pretty windy and cold outside so the shelter provided a welcome relief from the elements.
Once I was satisfied that I had found a place to sleep for the night, I rode about 7 miles to the nearest little town to get some yummy Chinese food being sold and freshly prepared on the side of the road and a couple of beers to bring back to my "hotel" for the night. So far, my first day in Taiwan was going well and my thoughts were I was going to enjoy myself here



In the morning, the rain had stopped. I headed south towards the Taroko Gorge. It is what I believe is one of the top tourist attractions in Taiwan and again, I felt like I had the place to myself.
It is basically a road winding thru a narrow gorge, but it is the road itself that is the attraction. I am so glad I had my own transport as taking a bus would not have been nearly as much fun.
The road tunnels thru the cliff face with cut outs in the rock so you can see down into the gorge.
It was an awesome ride. So cool, that I went back and did it twice.

Lots of these here.
Some you can take your scooter on
But not many you are supposed to take your scooter on

I rode all day and made it to the southern tip of Taiwan. That's over 400 kms in one day - most it along the beautiful eastern coastline.
Now I had 2 days to make it back. Seemed simple enough. But I was taking the route thru the mountains. If I didn't make it in those two days, I would miss my flight home.
The race was on.

Bottom of Taiwan......the very bottom

My second night, I found this abandoned resort to sleep it. Rain was possible so it was a cool place to spend the night. I walked thru the rooms at night with only my flashlight to guide me. It was sort of spooky but I laughed to myself as it is becoming sort of normal for me now.

Simply Amazing!!!! As always thanks for sharing!!!

Forgot to mention about the Wan-An air raid drill. I had thought about it a couple days into your trip. Prob best I didn't mention. Haha...must have been fun! Happened to me when I first arrived 13 years ago. Cop flagged me down right away though.

Glad you had a nice trip here. The east coast is really great for motorcycles. A tad bit too many traffic cams but necessary.

Hope your report will encourage others to want to try and ride here. It really is a beautiful place to ride. The government has spent millions trying to encourage bicyclists to come and ride around the island (and have been quite successful) but not motorcycles. There seems to be some dislike of bigger bikes here. But hey, grab a scooter! :)

Looking forward to read how you made out in the mountains.

Downtown Kenting. Lots of food stalls, bars and scooter rental places here.


Deep fried squid. Big line but not so good