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My Taiwan Adventure
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Kenting is a good thing!
Greetings All,
After two fabulously wonderful days in Kenting, I'm off exploring again. Kenting does sport wonderful beaches. It only took ten minutes to explore "town," which consists of 2 streets packed with hotels, retraunts and pubs. The trip down was interesting. I ended up on a "local" bus which stopped every 300 meters the entire way. It's only 100km trip and it took over 2.5 hours! What was really neat was watching the sky get more clear and more blue the further south we went. Kenting is paradise in air quality compared to the western part of the island where I have been so far.
The main beach, and biggest white sand beach in Kenting, has been leased to a hotel by the government. Therefore, there are fees to get onto the beach which is fenced off and armed with guards. The free beaches are pretty packed with people and their dogs. Of course, I arrived in town and checked into a hotel close to sunset, and I wasted no time in finding the "back road" to the beach. It consisted of a reasonably well formed trail about 5 minutes north past the last hotel resort. I trekked through the bush, careful to avoid the big cacti that flanked the trail and came upon a campfire spot, where I promptly got stuck by the small cacti which I wasn't dilligently looking for. Praying that the thing wasn't poisonous I walked onto the beach at sunset. It was worth the painful cactus bite. I took some photos and enjoyed watching the ocean, and when it was well and truly dark I trekked back through the woods... even more careful in the dark then I was earlier.
Kenting Recreation area is pretty tough to get around on foot. However, I treked a couple of km out of town and enjoyed the sheer beauty of Taiwan as it should be. Unspoiled by apartments, pollution or people, it was a beautiful time to just enjoy the quiet of nature.
Views of Kenting and Area: http://ats04.ee.nthu.edu.tw/~ats04/intro_kt.htm#Guanshan
I was going to rent a scooter on my second day, but it was raining (misting would be a more appropriate term) that morning. I spent the morning writing in my journal, and cards to friends, in the open air lobby of the hotel. I had planned to stay in the tenting area on the beach that day to offset the scooter rental. You can rent a tent for $300 NT a night right on the beach. However, due to the rain, I wasn't really interested. Instead that afternoon I paid the 30 NT to access the shoreline in the Kenting Youth Activity Centre compound. It was neat to walk on the black volcanic rocks just meters from the sea. There was a little crab that scuttled down the path in front of me that startled me, but other than that there was not a lot of wildlife. I thought I saw a whale fin, but it turned out to be a black garbage back blowing across the water.
I met up with a nice German fellow while I was resting in a shady area... the rocks were getting pretty darn hot in the afternoon sunshine. We spent some time together and got together later for supper in town.Valentine's day in Kenting, and I met more people... one girl who's teaching outside of Taipei and reccommends NOT working there. And 3 girls from Siberia whom are studying here. It is such a neat experience meeting all these people from diverse backgrounds!
Today I'm heading out to Taidong... which is the south east coast of Taiwan. I'm stopped right now in Fanglio which is an hour north of Kenting. I'm going to look for work here because it is on the train line, reasonably clean, the sky is actually BLUE, the ocean is 2 minutes from the train station and I'm hoping beyond hope there is a buxiban (english school) here that needs me. Am slightly optomistic about this... especially since I know the temperatures here average 28 above in the summer and quite often are higher than the average. It has only been 25 or so in the hotel rooms I've stayed in so far and I am thankful for air conditioning!
Oh, by the way - the time in Kaohsiung and Kenting have relaxed me to the point where I feel like I'm actually on vacation! Yay! Looking for work is more of a hobby now than a necessity. If I can find a hotel here in Fanglio on the way back to the train station I'll probably check in for the night and wander the streets looking for bushibans.
Cheers!
Love and Hugs to those who want them.
T. Destiny - wandering in Taiwan.
After two fabulously wonderful days in Kenting, I'm off exploring again. Kenting does sport wonderful beaches. It only took ten minutes to explore "town," which consists of 2 streets packed with hotels, retraunts and pubs. The trip down was interesting. I ended up on a "local" bus which stopped every 300 meters the entire way. It's only 100km trip and it took over 2.5 hours! What was really neat was watching the sky get more clear and more blue the further south we went. Kenting is paradise in air quality compared to the western part of the island where I have been so far.
The main beach, and biggest white sand beach in Kenting, has been leased to a hotel by the government. Therefore, there are fees to get onto the beach which is fenced off and armed with guards. The free beaches are pretty packed with people and their dogs. Of course, I arrived in town and checked into a hotel close to sunset, and I wasted no time in finding the "back road" to the beach. It consisted of a reasonably well formed trail about 5 minutes north past the last hotel resort. I trekked through the bush, careful to avoid the big cacti that flanked the trail and came upon a campfire spot, where I promptly got stuck by the small cacti which I wasn't dilligently looking for. Praying that the thing wasn't poisonous I walked onto the beach at sunset. It was worth the painful cactus bite. I took some photos and enjoyed watching the ocean, and when it was well and truly dark I trekked back through the woods... even more careful in the dark then I was earlier.
Kenting Recreation area is pretty tough to get around on foot. However, I treked a couple of km out of town and enjoyed the sheer beauty of Taiwan as it should be. Unspoiled by apartments, pollution or people, it was a beautiful time to just enjoy the quiet of nature.
Views of Kenting and Area: http://ats04.ee.nthu.edu.tw/~ats04/intro_kt.htm#Guanshan
I was going to rent a scooter on my second day, but it was raining (misting would be a more appropriate term) that morning. I spent the morning writing in my journal, and cards to friends, in the open air lobby of the hotel. I had planned to stay in the tenting area on the beach that day to offset the scooter rental. You can rent a tent for $300 NT a night right on the beach. However, due to the rain, I wasn't really interested. Instead that afternoon I paid the 30 NT to access the shoreline in the Kenting Youth Activity Centre compound. It was neat to walk on the black volcanic rocks just meters from the sea. There was a little crab that scuttled down the path in front of me that startled me, but other than that there was not a lot of wildlife. I thought I saw a whale fin, but it turned out to be a black garbage back blowing across the water.
I met up with a nice German fellow while I was resting in a shady area... the rocks were getting pretty darn hot in the afternoon sunshine. We spent some time together and got together later for supper in town.Valentine's day in Kenting, and I met more people... one girl who's teaching outside of Taipei and reccommends NOT working there. And 3 girls from Siberia whom are studying here. It is such a neat experience meeting all these people from diverse backgrounds!
Today I'm heading out to Taidong... which is the south east coast of Taiwan. I'm stopped right now in Fanglio which is an hour north of Kenting. I'm going to look for work here because it is on the train line, reasonably clean, the sky is actually BLUE, the ocean is 2 minutes from the train station and I'm hoping beyond hope there is a buxiban (english school) here that needs me. Am slightly optomistic about this... especially since I know the temperatures here average 28 above in the summer and quite often are higher than the average. It has only been 25 or so in the hotel rooms I've stayed in so far and I am thankful for air conditioning!
Oh, by the way - the time in Kaohsiung and Kenting have relaxed me to the point where I feel like I'm actually on vacation! Yay! Looking for work is more of a hobby now than a necessity. If I can find a hotel here in Fanglio on the way back to the train station I'll probably check in for the night and wander the streets looking for bushibans.
Cheers!
Love and Hugs to those who want them.
T. Destiny - wandering in Taiwan.
Posted by T. Destiny in Taiwan at 11:54 AM 
