After our epic cycling trip, we headed further down the coast for a two night stop in Kenting. Enroute, we decided to take a small detour and explored the city of Hengchun.  There is not much going on in Hengchun, but it was worth making the stop to see the South Gate, one of Southern Taiwan’s most iconic structures.  The city was once surrounded completely by a wall, half of which is still standing, containing the old town.  There has been enough modernization in the old town that it is not always clear when you are in the old town or the new. It was an interesting town to explore, but we were happy we decided to only make it a stop for lunch and a walk in the heat since we had not seen much sun for almost a week.

Quirks of Kenting

I really enjoyed the quirks of Kenting. For example, at the large intersection near the National Forest Area Gate, one will notice a unique pedestrian crosswalk signal. The signs at this intersection give enough time to play an animated scene of a man walking up to a woman and impregnating her. To clarify, in the world of crosswalk animation, a woman gets pregnant by having her belly touched by a hand. A heart grows in her belly until it is time to cross and then the green light illuminates and the couple walks their child across the street.

I couldn’t figure out why this particular intersection had this special walk signal. Maybe it was because a large fetus-like sculpture by Taiwanese artist Kang Mu­xiang sits on one corner of the intersection or maybe it was inspired by the rent-by-the-hour love hotel on the opposite corner appropriately called Sin Sin Hotel. 

Most hotels in Kenting don’t have a seedy vibe. The hotels on the road parallel to the beach are eye-catching with massive murals and mosaics and some have oversized stuffed animals in the windows. Our own hotel, tucked, off the main road had the design of a North American log cabin motel. 

A Failed Attempt To Walk The Beach

Making it to a beach town was another highlight for us. Undoubtedly a crowded spot during the high season, in late January we had the beach practically to ourselves. We found out why a few minutes into our walk when the winds whipped up, sandblasting us every few minutes. We eventually had to abandon our seaside stroll and resort to walking on the highway in our flip-flops. This might not sound like fun but you need to understand how desperate we were for sun at this point. Eventually the wind made it impossible for us to continue on the highway. I’m from Newfoundland and am used to wind and this was pretty extreme. We did link back to the beach just in time to take in our first sunset of the trip since Kenting was our first destination located on the western side of the country. Unfortunately, Cheryl missed our walking adventure as she was the third one to fall victim to the whatever bug was going around our group. 

Exploring The Night Market

Despite being a smaller town Kenting has a fun night market. I’m not sure if the wind was normal since Taiwan was experiencing some odd weather, including a cold snap we were not enjoying, but it did not seem to deter the food hawkers selling typical night market fare to the couples, friends and families going up and down the long street from cart to cart. We joined in with the rest of the crowd exploring the long street of stalls enjoying our first taste of scallion pancakes, sweet potato balls and taro.

Kenting National Forest Area

The entrance to Kenting National Forest Recreation Area was located just a few minutes walk from our accommodation, however, there is a long uphill road to get to the actual entry gate. Biking would have been a brutal option and we could not figure out the public transit system into the park, so we settled on an Uber. The recreation area was an easy place to explore with stone paths and staircases leading visitors along various trails, past root-covered cliffs, and through several caves. The park’s viewing tower offered a spectacular panoramic view of the southern tip of the country and the blue waters surrounding it. We were already impressed with the attention to detail in Taiwan, but watching a staff member carry out his job of cleaning the signage lettering with a toothbrush was next level.

Eluanbi Lighthouse

After exploring the forest area, our next stop was the Eluanbi Lighthouse, the most southerly point of Taiwan. The lighthouse itself was closed because it was Monday, but we got to enjoy it from the outside.  We followed the trails down to the ocean viewing platforms and were pretty excited when we had the opportunity to use the most southernly toilet in the country. When you travel as much as we do, these are the things you get excited about!  

What we were not excited about was the changing status of the weather. It was warm but it would start and stop raining continuously. Just enough rain to make us get out our rain jackets but not enough to keep them on for longer than a few minutes in the humidity. 

When we returned to town we decided it was worth trying for sunset, despite a fairly cloudy sky. It wasn’t the best, but we enjoyed some beers with it. The minute our mediocre sunset was over, the rain started and it became clear that it was not something we could out-wait. 

Unfortunately, Kenting lacks affordable indoor restaurants, so we zipped up our rain jackets and rushed between the stalls at the market we had yet to try. Once full, we managed to shelter from the rain by entering a large room off the street full of claw machine games. After analyzing which prizes would be practical to win, we settled on a machine full of resealable bags (ziplock essentially). It took 4 tries and several strategies, but we walked away victorious with our prize. 

We didn’t understand at the time how prominent these games were in Taiwan or how our repeated exposure to them as we walked through cities would result in a bit of an obsession on our part as the trip progressed, but that is for a future blog post. With our prize in hand, we made it back to the hotel in time to avoid the torrential downpour that lasted through the night.

The next morning we woke up to a hot sun and headed for the bus stop, excitedly discussing all the ways we could put our resealable bags to use. 

Next stop…Tainan.