Advertisement
Published: February 5th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Custard Fruit
Looks gross but Really Tasty! As our train rolled to a stop at Fulong Station we realized we didn't make it to Gongliao where we had a hotel reservation. In the end it worked out for the best, we wanted to go to Fulong in the first place. Fulong is a quiet little town with a beautiful water front, hotels and surf/bike rental shops although it was pretty quiet when we were there. We spotted a visitor centre nearby the station and the staff helped us negotiate the same price for a hotel in Fulong as we had in Gongliao so we decided to stay. Also they told us about Fulong's fampous lunch boxes that we had to try.
When we were heading to our hotel we saw a lady selling BBQ bacon, mushroom and pepper skewers so we had to pay her a visit after we dropped off our bags. The lady was extremely curious about Canada asking us many questions. For example, she wanted to compare daily expenses in Canada compared to Taiwan. She wondered if Canada sells Coca Cola, beer and deep fried chicken chops and how much the items would sell for in Canadian Dollars. Even with the language barrier we
managed to find out that she immigrated to Taiwan from Vietnam 5 years ago. Also she told us she rented the shop from the owner across the street who owned three different properties along the busy road. The lady's shop was located on the main street in Fulong (a one stop-light kinda town) where Semi Trucks cruised by at full speed through a tight two lane road. As advanced as Taiwan is, they should consider in-town speed limits.
Since we still had some time before dark we decided to rent some bikes for a short ride around town. We still wanted to try the famous lunch box before our bike ride so we grabbed a couple just down the street. The lunch box consisted of rice, soya sauce boiled rock hard egg, soy bean curds, spam and other traditional tawain soya sauce stewed meat/vegetable. Maybe the lunch box would be better if it was hot but we weren't that excited about them, anyways it filled up our bellies. When we were walking around to find a bargain on our bike rental we walked by our lady BBQ vendor again. This time there were two friendly Americans who we started
to chat with. A few hours later, accompanied by some more BBQ skewers the two caught a train back to Taipei. Blake and Dustin, from South Carolina, gave us tips about different trails around Fulong. They told us about an epic hike they went on and braving the cold camping out at the campground around Fulong beach. The funny thing was that we enquired about camping earlier but we chickened out. I (Mazi) didn't think camping was a huge thing to the Chinese but campgrounds are available. The Fulong campground also provided camping necessities such as tent and sleeping bag rentals for campers who are less prepared. We were happy to be inside the warmth of our hotel.
Since we did not bring a travel guide with us for Taiwan we relied mainly on other travellers advice and these handy visitor centres. The Fulong visitor centre recommended a few short hikes around Fulong. We decided to make a trip out to Bitou lighthouse and hike to Nanya. We jumped on the bus and told the driver we wanted to get off at the Bitou Trail Head and kindly asked him to give us a heads up when we get
Fulong Night Life
Not too many people around at night but semi-trucks and speedy vehicles cruise along the highway we are standing on with full speed. close to the stop. We weren't really paying attention and our driver must have forgot so we ended up a lot further than we had expected. We still managed to look around Nanya's amazing rock landscape along the shore. Fisherman were standing as close as they could to water waiting for a big catch while water crashed as high as 6 feet in the air. We were not far from where our trail began but there was no shoulder on the highway and below us was a rocky ledge being pounded by waves. We tried walking along it for a while but when we hit a dead end we realized there was no safe route back. A little frustrated we tried our luck looking for a good samaritan to drive us back to our trail head.
Thankfully we found three young guys from Taipei who were taking their new Honda Fit for a test ride. At first they resisted because they were going the opposite direction but we explained that we didn't have far too go. The guys agreed and took us no more than 4km to the other side of a tunnel where our trail began.
The
Longdong Bay trail begins along the shore which is a wide ledge of sandstone with unique rock formations. Waves splash against the large rocks teasing Fisherman. The trail eventually turned into concrete stairs heading up the hillside towards the lighthouse. We hiked along the edge of the mountain admiring the ocean view leading us to Bitou Lighthouse. The water was a nice blue colour despite dark clouds overhead. When we got to the rock face we got an impressive view of the rocky coast line with forest and mountains and the sea.
The trail wound along the ridge of the hills passing by some grazing sheep and then ducked into the forest below. On the hill in the middle of the forest we saw an impressive shrine and the trail ended up in the narrow streets of the fishing village at Bitou.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0294s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb