Owen and I got back to Penghu when it was BEAUTIFUL and sunny last Friday morning, only to be knocked out by food poisoning a few hours later. Who’s to say what did it, but we were both down bad for the rest of the weekend, which was unfortunate when I had to head back to work on Monday as the sunshine left and the gray, wet, cold wind returned. Turns out some rats also made a home in our apartment while we were gone— news which was delivered to us mid-illness. You cannot imagine the way this back-to-reality shock hit the system in such a profoundly “why me” way. We groaned and puked and then groaned some more about it all. But now, three days into being fully recovered and able to eat food again, I feel much more at peace. We’ve cleaned everything and we’re doing our best to make ourselves at home again (sans Olivia </3). It’s been really nice seeing colleagues and students again, and I’m sure this weekend I’ll get around to seeing some other Fulbright friends as well, and hopefully trading some adventure stories.
Here’s some of mine :-)
One of the unforgettable days of our trip (for good and for bad) was our second to last day biking. The plan was to cover about 42 miles, mostly along the coast. We knew we could do it, since we had covered that distance plenty of times at this point. We were on Day 15 of our trip, feeling pretty good and used to the rainy weather and headwinds and hills.
Fairly early in the day, we went through an amazing 2km tunnel for bikes (Old Caoling Tunnel) — a welcome change from some of our scary huge loud mountain highway tunnels of the past few days.
And then Owen‘s back tire got a flat. No problem, this was bound to happen at some point and we were prepared. We spent a while trying to see if we could patch it up but instead decided to use our spare tube and hand pump to get the job done. It looked good, so we headed to a local police station to use a bigger bike pump and get a read on the PSI. And that’s probably (?) where our troubles really began. The rain was coming down pretty hard at this point, without showing any signs of letting up, and because we were now in the northern part of the country, it was cold. The police station bike pump happened to be broken and missing an essential piece on the part where the needle would go in, but neither of us realized this at first, so we tried using it on the front tire of Owen’s bike. The result was that it deformed the needle on the bike wheel. When we tried then to further inflate the tire using our hand pump, we were not able to get it as full of air as we would have liked, and instead some air even got released accidentally, but we both thought it seemed good enough to ride and that we could fix it in the next town at a proper bike shop. As we headed into the rain again, things seemed okay until Owen’s front tire got a flat, probably from not being pumped full enough, and we had no more spare tubes, just a patch kit. Bad luck, it seemed, but then two other bikers who had pulled into the same area as us happened to have an extra tube (and actually a full support team car mom who was carrying their stuff for them from place to place while they also completed a round-island trip). They were so kind and very graciously helped us change the tube.
We counted our blessings and trudged on in the rain, through rural coastal roads, only to be thwarted again a few miles later by a THIRD flat on Owen’s bike, again on the front tire which we had just changed. This sucked. It was so wet and cold and there was no town nearby and we weren’t sure what we were going to do. We walked to a big parking lot that had some small amount of shelter and decided to just figure out what to do the next day, because we were not going to be able to walk to a town in the freezing rain. We planned to set up a tent at this parking lot, but then there was a sign saying that the lot would be closed at 7pm, and it was about 4pm, so we had to make a new plan. Luckily, there was a bus stop not too far away, but we weren’t sure whether the local buses allowed bikes (Some do and some don’t. Turns out it often just depends on the driver’s mood). We tested our luck, unsure what we would do if he said no, and the driver kindly allowed us to carry our bikes onto the bus and then we headed the final 15 miles of the day’s trip shivering on a bus.
We were feeling pretty low and unsure if we would be able to push the bike to any type of camping area, so we got a last-minute AirBnb. Taking a shower after 5 days without one felt like heaven! And a BED with dry sheets/blankets, etc, was amazing. The only downside was that the budget AirBnb room had two openings to the outdoors which couldn’t be closed, so Owen and I each got about a dozen mosquito bites that night, which left my face a bit puffy in the morning. But it’s hard to complain when you’re so exhausted, and I was beyond glad to be dry and clean and (mostly) indoors. We ordered in Pizza Hut and boba tea and watched Moonrise Kingdom (a fantastic Wes Anderson film). It was a great end to a LONG day.
Because we were so sick this weekend, we packed in quite a few movies. Here’s a fun list!
Into the Wild (true story of Christopher McCandless and the Alaskan wilderness)
Before Sunrise (romance movie part 1!)
Before Sunset (romance movie part 2!)
Tampopo (Japanese film about a woman becoming a ramen master chef)
The Holy Mountain (Mexican film about … a religious cult of sorts?)
And on the media kick, here’s a blog I’ve really been enjoying about activism in Taiwan: https://ampleroad.substack.com/about. Happy Hump Day.
Wow, you two are stellar! I'm so happy that you made it through ALL those rough-patches, and am hopeful that things calm now that you're back "home" and the weather and all tires coorperate! Sending huges!
Congrats for completing the trip around the island!