Yeh - I reach Taiwan's Southern tip and Kenting
Trip Start
Nov 06, 2006
1
54
106
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Kenting, Taiwan
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Total Distance: 22 km
Altitude up: 140m
altitude down: 140m
Do I really think I will ever get a good sleep? It's 1:00am and a group of four young guys comes into the room, occupying the remaining sleeping places. Now we are complete. Although they try their best not to make too much noise, its unavoidable and I can't sleep for the next 90 minutes or so. At 5:30am the surfers wake up to catch the early morning surf. Sleep - good bye. Trying to keep my eyes closed and pretending to sleep still I finally give up und face the new day - but sun can be hard on your eyes at that time. The toxicology professor gives me a bag full of small tomatoes and grapes, which I appreciate as fresh fruits had been in short supply for the past few days. The view from the window is is great - palms, sand beach and ocean. At 7:00 I buy my breakfast ( 2 sandwiches and toufu milk ) from the moving breakfast car and enjoy my breakfast on the terrace with just mentioned view.
At 7:30am I leave for Kenting ( 1.5 km to main road, 11 km to Erluenpi, 7km to Kenting ). I call Angel and sing " Happy Birthday" in terrible Chinese and with my terrible voice and melody - she really has birthday, not because of heat induces halucinations. I stop at many places along the splendid coast of the Kenting National Park. [ The Hengchun Peninsula has distinct rainy and dry seasons. In summer southwesterly airstreams bring abundant rainfall. These rains wash the sand into the waters. In winter the strong northeastern monsoon winds blow the sand from the coastline to the tops of the cliffs, forming unique landscapes such as sand cascades, sand rivers and sand dunes.] I have a look at a homestay with the name " The Scotsman " , when the Chinese wife of this man comes to the door with their child. We have a little chat, her husband is already surfing and they dream of immigrating to Australia. Who knows if the place will still be scottish when I will come next time. A group of four cyclists passes and stops, we great each other and exchange what we are doing - they are from Taipei and ride around Taiwan, find what I do great and we take pictures. I stop at a very small restaurant and have a 50 NTD fish soup ( I have been here a few months ago with Joe and Jillian ).
Another turn and there I see it, the light tower of Erluenpi. There it is. I feel exited. I have not yet walked around whole Taiwan ( due to my zig-zag according to kilometers I already did ) , but I have walked the whole stretch from the North to the southern tip. I buy a 40 NTD ticket and walk into the park, go many of the nature trails with old former coral formations standing like high walls of rock on both sides of the walkway. The Pacific Plate has been pushed for hundrets of millions of years against the Asian Continental shelf and has thus pushed the island Taiwan up from the ocean floor to its present hights; the coral formations have been lifted out of the ocean. These are wonderful and bizarre limestone formations, which can be found in many parts of the Kenting National Park. I then reach the lighthouse, I take photos and ask someone to take a photo with the name plate and me. I try to call Angel, but I cannot reach her, so I am alone with my feelings [ Since 1867 many shipwreck accidents had occurred along the coast of the Hengchun Peninsula. Therefore the Ching court entrusted members of the Royal Geographical Society to prospect for a suitable place to build a lighthouse. Under the supervision of English engineers the lighthouse was built in 1882. To defend it against incursions by the aboriginies, the lighthouse was equipped with moat, cannons and a surrounding wall with loopholes for firing. Soldiers were sent to guard it, making it one of the very few fortified lighthouses in the world. The lighthouse was blown up by the retreating Ching soldiers in 1895 and rebuilt by the Japanese in 1898. It was heavily bombed during the second World War and restored thereafter. Erluanbi is with its 1.8 million candle power the most powerful lighthouse in Taiwan and has been known as the " Beacon of Southeast Asia ". ]
At noon I walk to Kenting, targeting the camping place near Banana Bay [ The banana bay tropical coastal forest is about 1.5 km in length and has an area of 28 hectars. It is an ecology protection area. Coastal forests are often comprised of plants that spread their seeds through floating fruits in the ocean waters. This explains the variety of plants living in the coastal forests, such as Indian Barringtonia, Sea Hearse and Indian Almond. ] On the way I pass by two extremes, the phantastic ocean colors with corals, beaches and beach vegetation on one side and the ugly go-cart courses on the other ( eye and ear soar ). I visit a small museum explaining the consistence of the sand - corals and shells ground to fine particles forming the sand. In the mini fishing harbor near Banana bay I sit down for an ice tea on the terrace of Rose's coffee and homestay.
Later I walk to the camping place just on the other side of the street. The weather is wonderful, no cloud in the sky and no rain for days - so I decide to camp her, although they do not have any roof cover and I only have the inner tent with me this time after I gave the outer tent and all earth ankers to Neal. Also the weather report on TV last night was good. I call Angel to cancel the reservation in the church hostel in Kenting as I hope a night alone in the tent is better than a shared room. I check the weather opinion of the owner's daughter and she says: " It has not rained for the last two weeks." That's really assuring. Only two other parties, families, stay on the camp ground. I just put all my things down, not setting up my tent as the still strong wind may carry it away without the anker nails to fix it in the ground away. I walk to the 3.5 km to Kenting village, sit in a comfortable chair in the lobby of the 5-star Ceasar hotel, which is pretty busy, and watch a Samba dance performance by three beautiful female dancers. Then I change to the beach coffee shop on the other side of the street, where I read my now again available newspaper and watch the activities on the beach, including banana boat, jets and so on. I walk through the center of Kenting, which is preparing for the nightly carneval on the streets, have a Mexican dinner at Cuccina ( I needed the different taste ) and go back 3.5 km to my place after 7:00pm.
Three more tents have been set up. I also set up my tent in 3 minutes ( only inner tent ). Then I sit with owner's family ( father, son, daughter ), talk while a game show is running on TV. They offer me to take a Papaya or two from their garden with me. [ The father is a retired fisherman who has worked all his life on a 3.000 tons big fishing trawler, shipping all oceans all over the world, places like Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Argentina, Chile and many more, he can't name them all. They have been away for weeks and even months. He is still a very tall, upright walking man with a strong character face. Now his son is a fisherman on a smaller boat which only fishes in the coastal waters, leaving at 3:00 am and returning to the harbor at 7:00 or 8:00 am with the catch of the day. ]
At 10 pm I go to my tent with one Papaya in the hope of good sleep.
