Hsinchu

November 25, 2014

In the Windy City

Today's was the longest ride of the tour, so we were up for breakfast at 6:30 and out of our hotel by 8. We were happy to see that air quality had improved greatly overnight, and we cycled out of Taichung this morning under blue skies with generally good visibility. We were surprised to see hills rising just to the east of the city - last night, it seemed we couldn't see more than a mile. Before we left town we swung by Taichung Park again for a better look. It was very attractive this morning, and alive - peopled in small groups sharing exercise routines, joggers, strollers. And a few hundred school children facing off in a massive tug of war.

Taichung Park was much prettier this morning after the air cleared up

In Taichung Park: the goat statue was added in 2003 (Year of the Goat) to commemorate the lantern festival.

General Guan Yu sits atop Nantian Temple, Taichung

We found a fine route out of Taichung - for the first 7 miles or so we followed a pair of very enjoyable cycle paths north through the city, the first atop a streamside dike that gave us good views over the town, and the second cutting diagonally northwest through the suburbs. They added a few miles to our already long itinerary but were well worth it and probably saved us time in avoided stop lights. At one point we passed by a group of reverent women singing, chanting and playing musical instruments in unison - it added a touch of beautiful serenity to our morning.

Several attractive cycle paths give an enjoyable way north out of Taichung

On one of Taichung's appealing cycle paths

From the northern suburbs of Taichung we dropped west to the sea and then followed the coastline northward for the rest of the day. In places we veered off onto smaller roads but for the most part this was a heads down push up highway 61 rather than adding any more distance. We found this to be a good cycling highway - not much traffic, with a generous shoulder the whole way. A good option for covering distance efficiently.

Nearing Hsinchu we left the highway for several miles to follow a delightful seaside cycle path. Then, we cut inland toward the city for 5 miles, first through fairly quiet residential neighborhoods but finally descending into urban rush hour and Scooter Hell. By the time we found our hotel we'd had our fill of this drill - bike 5 blocks or so and then stop for a light; wait a minute as 20-30 scooters herd up around us in a throbbing mass; start up again with the green, and experience scooters passing us on both sides, crossing in front of us, and occasionally coming at us head on.

White Cloud Bridge on the Hsinchu seaside cycle path

Taiwan Strait, from the Hsinchu cycle path

Blue Sky Bridge on the Hsinchu cycle path

Lion dancers rehearsing by the roadside, Hsinchu. Even with their safety mattress this looked scary.

We arrived at our hotel shortly before sundown, so that was it for city sightseeing. We loved our hotel though - a modern high rise business hotel with all the conveniences, and very tailored to westerners (English at checkin; good western menu at dinner; awesome smorgasbord breakfast that even included muesli!). Hsinchu is a technology hot spot and sees a lot of high tech travelers, so it has a reputation of having some surprisingly high quality hotels. It was odd sitting in the dining room at dinner and seeing 3 western men dining alone, faces buried into their electronic devices. These are the first Caucasians we've seen for about 5 days.

Today's ride: 74 miles (119 km)
Total: 847 miles (1,363 km)

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