Train and Camp

over to Taiwan's southeast

My wife Debbie isn't not coming on this mini-tour. It's still really hot in September and she's got enough sense to stay out of the frazzling heat and get her brain fried.

While Taiwan is a relatively small island, adjacent Orchid Island is really dinky - just a dot in the Pacific.

It's also a bit remote and not particularly easy to get to.

For most people, it starts with a long journey down to Taitung City in the country’s southeastern corner, followed by a trip up to Fugang harbor, then a few hours on a ferry, which leaves at 7.30 am. The ferry only sails if there are enough passengers to warrant it, and also if the weather is OK.

That’s basically why I've never been.

Bikes don’t usually go on trains in Taiwan: you have to send them as freight a day before, so on Wednesday morning we pop my bike to the local station, fill out the form and pay the NT$600 - about US$20 - fee, and get told it'll be in Taitung at 11 on Thursday morning. Nice.

But we then find there were no seats left on the fast trains: even on the Thursday afternoon departure. This means getting the regular, slow train.

And I mean s l o w w w w... . . Pedestrian slow.

It takes around nine hours to get to Taitung from Chungli. You could fly across a big chunk of the world in that time.

As if that wasn't bad enough, on the way home I remembered that my afternoon train is scheduled to arrive in Taitung a couple of hours after the baggage office closes.

Dang!

Debbie phoned the baggage guy in Taitung who said they might open up and let me get my bike, but I’m not very optimistic.

The opening hours are 8 till 8.

What this means is I’ll probably have to collect it on Friday morning, and that means I’ll miss the 7.30am ferry to Orchid Island.

And that sucks.

We'll see.

I just need to take a good book for the journey and keep my fingers crossed the baggage guy is in a charitable mood when I arrive.

What an epic.

The first few hours pass OK.

The carriage slowly fills up. I read the day’s newspaper. There is the window to look out of.

My imagination gets flexed: Will the baggage guy in Taitung be nice to me?

Will the weather be like the forecast, which predicts it to be wet nationwide for the next a few days?

Where might I sleep?

The map gets perused. Its notes say Orchid Island has a humid climate and abundant rainfall.

There’s a brief shower, rain streaking the glass pane. I never bother with the Graham Greene novel in my pannier.

By 3.30 there are blue skies and the train zips along the east coast, through tunnels cut into the mountains that plunge down to the ocean. There are puffy, pink-tinged clouds billowing above the vast Pacific, their reflections adding to its majesty.

Darkness comes like the flick of a switch at 6.30, just as the train veers inland from Hualian. My seat has become uncomfortable and once we finally pull into Taitung it’s a huge relief to get off and feel the warm night air.

Now to get my bike.

The young guys at the service counter tell me I’ll have to come back in the morning. No way.

They then call the baggage office and someone tells them he’s been expecting me - a foreigner.

The two guys walk around the building and there’s my yellow Thorn. It doesn’t take me long to load up. The three of them say it’s dangerous to ride to the ferry terminal. Give me a break.

With my LEDs flashing, I set off and soon find a 7-Eleven where I use the coin phone to let Debbie know all is well and then pop inside for a micro-waved curry before cycling in and out of the city, following signs for the ferry port of Fugang, something like 10km or so to the north. The road is quiet as you might expect at gone 11.00 PM.

Another 7-Eleven stands on the corner of the turnoff down to the Fugang quay. It’ll be where I have breakfast.

A small village road twists for a hundred meters and then skirts the sea. I spot a gravel service road that drops to the water’s edge and I freewheel along it and find a space where my tent can go, an area with weeds poking through the rocks, right below a concrete sea wall that looms high above, some 3 meters tall, with street lights spaced along it that glare a dull orange.

There’s no wind and once inside the clammy tent sweat trickles down my bare torso and soaks into the small IKEA hand-towel that's on top of my inflatable sleeping pad. Its surface feels like a body warmer.

Thankfully I packed an eye-mask and it blocks out the soda lights, but strange noises among the tall weeds make sleep a hard-won thing.

It's a somewhat fitting end to an epic journey.

Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 12 km (7 miles)

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