Kaohsiung, Taicheng, Sun Moon Lake and Taipei again

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January 22nd 2009

Published: February 11th 2009

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geoffandmazi

Kaohsiung

harbour

After our last dive we caught the bus up to Kaohsiung. We stayed the night and we were told to check a small island that creates the harbour. Kaohsiung is a busy port town and there were plenty of big ships and boats. We crossed to the island via a small ferry and rented a two person bike. We had a map so we checked out a few sights including a lighthouse and a Qing Dynasty fort that was also used during WWII. We cruised around along the beach passing a temple and a small pagoda. We got a little wet passing a water fountain by the beach too.

We went with the tourist centre advice and went to Taichung as our transit point for Sun Moon Lake and Alishan but our info wasn't accurate we should have stopped at Chiayi City for Alishan. We did not want to back track to Chiayi City and we had limited time so we decided to only go to Sun Moon Lake. The bus to the lake was nice heading in to the mountain past farms and a long a river.

Sun Moon Lake is a small lake that had hotels, shops

Kaohsiung

beach area and bike path

and resturants in two spots on the lake. The tropical vegetation around the lake made our bike ride around the lake very refreshing. It was nice to rent bikes to go around the lake (33km around) on a nice sunny day. Maybe a bit further than expected but it was a good route with lots of down hills and the up hills were fairly drawn out and not too steep. At about halfway we cruised down a pretty big hill that took us through a small village and betel-nut plantation. It was a bit of a pedal back up large hillside before the final decent into the town we were staying.

We just stayed overnight in Sun Moon Lake and caught a bus back to Taipei the night before our flight to Hong Kong. That night we went another night market within walking distance of our hostel and tried oyster fried rice, a pita wrap with curried meat and some other treats. The next morning I (Geoff) got up early to check out the National Palace museum. The museum has many of the relics that used to be stored in the Forbidden City in Beijing but were smuggled to

Kaohsiung

Mazi chillin on the ferry back from the island

Taipei after the Nationalist lost power. The museum has some really old pottery and artifacts dating from the stone age and many items from past dynasties especially from the most recent Qing Dynasty. I even saw the famous jade that looks like a piece of bak choy.

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