Tuesday February 25th. For our second walk of 2025, we were faced with the same problem as the previous walk; there’s no way to stick close to the coast without walking along busy main roads, which is not an enticing prospect. We finished Day 26 in HuWei and drawing a parallel line from there takes one to Santiaolun Fishing Harbour, from where we began our day, heading inland along quieter roads in a south easterly direction.
The day began with the three Northerners heading down on the High Speed Rail from Taipei to meet Tim, who had made the shorter journey from Tainan, at Yunlin HSR station. Getting in a taxi, we were met with the usual astonishment from the driver that we wanted to go to some completely obscure place on the coast and no, we didn’t need him to wait for us, as we were going to walk 27km to Beigang. Satisfied, the driver punched the address into the God of Google and off we went.
One of the many ways we amuse ourselves during our long walks is for one of us to be reminded of a song by something we’ve said or seen and then quote a lyric from that song for the others to guess. We’d only been in the taxi a couple of minutes when Elaine began a tale about a friend in Clapham, London, which immediately prompted the question “Which song features a girl from Clapham?” Answer – “Up The Junction” by Squeeze. We were aware that today’s journey wouldn’t have many points of interest so we decided to come up with as many musical references as possible during the day and we duly managed dozens and dozens. So just for fun, this write up and some of the photo descriptions will be Spiced (Girls) up with musical references, which will appear in italics. Feel free to ignore them but if you want to guess, all the answers will be in the appendix at the end.
We arrived at the harbour just after 10am and after our obligatory starting photo, we waved our taxi driver goodbye and started to head inland. With The Wind At Our Heels and Mr. Blue Sky overhead, all seemed set for a Lovely Day. In the taxi Elaine had mentioned that this part of the west coast is famous for mollusk farming and discarded oyster shells are a common sight. Sure enough, within the first few minutes we saw numerous huge baskets containing oyster shells and this was a regular occurrence during the first part of the journey.
After a few minutes we came to our first point of interest, the huge Hai Qing Temple, which also seems to be known as the Sanjorun Kaisei Palace. Whatever it’s called, it’s certainly impressive and Tim couldn’t resist the opportunity to pull off a quick Eagle Claw pose in the main courtyard. The magnificent orange tiled roof seemed to glisten under the bright blue sky but, like most of the temples we would see on today’s journey, it was practically deserted.
Yunlin County is sparsely populated and with today’s route aiming to take us along smaller roads wherever possible, we saw very few people for the next few hours. The main industry here is agriculture so we spent many hours walking past crops of cabbages, sugar cane and rice paddies; typically, the handful of people we saw working in the fields were all elderly.
With the temperature in the low 20s it made for very pleasant walking, although there wasn’t a lot to distract us visually other than the fields, temples and the occasional brightly coloured mural. There were plenty of roadside chairs for Martyn to feast his eyes upon, so at least he was happy. At one point, a couple of fearless ducks in the middle of the road caused us to smile as they forced approaching cars to slow down and detour around them.
Shortly afterwards we passed the empty Flying King Temple (飛王宮) and then large fields of what we took to be cabbages, until Martyn declared them to be kohlrabi or cabbage turnips. At this point we happened upon some roadside chairs in the shade and decided to take a rest break and start on our fruit and nuts snacks. Given the low population density, we had little chance of interaction with the locals; the mostly old folk that we saw all seemed to stare at us in surprise. We would respond with a cheery wave and a hearty “Ni Hao,” and this usually produced a smile and a wave in return. Whilst we were enjoying our roadside respite, a friendly chap walked over and spread his arms wide in greeting and cried out “Welcome” in English. He then continued to chat in Taiwanese and said he’d seen us earlier by the Hi Life Convenience Store. It almost seemed like word had got round – “there’s some strangers in town; they seem friendly but let’s keep an eye on them”.
Moving on we passed a rural police station and speculated on how busy they were. Given at least 50% of the scooter riders we saw weren’t wearing helmets, they didn’t seem to be very vigilant on traffic violations. We then saw a number of family tombs at the back of fields, which is slightly unusual in Taiwan as the preference is to place them on a hillside with an unobstructed view for the deceased. The very flat country in this part of Taiwan no doubt resulted in the fields being chosen for these last resting places.
We then took a slight detour to visit another temple (or Houses Of The Holy as we musically renamed them) but hit a dead end in the road and had to scramble over a field and through a hole in the back wall. While the again deserted temple wasn’t particularly ornate, it did have one interesting feature – just under the left and right sides of the roof was a figure of a bare chested man with one hand holding up the roof and a cigarette drooping out of his mouth.
On we strode, past more cabbage and onion fields, another temple with beautiful bougainvillea flowers in front of it and then one more temple, where we decided to rest. This had attracted our attention due to the broken statues in the forecourt, which had clearly been taken off the pagodas on either side of the roof. Again, there was no one around and the only sound was the loud chattering of the birds in the eaves of the roof and the munching of snacks.
Refreshed after our pit stop, we marched past a courtyard of drying cabbages and then a factory advertising for workers; we decided not to apply and proceeded onwards. We were now on a slightly busier road and passed an old chap who was staring blankly at us. We gave him our usual hearty greeting and he responded with the single English word “thanks.” Spurred on by the octogenarian’s encouragement we soon passed the large Heavenly Sacred Temple (天聖宮) and crossed a foul smelling creek to get back onto smaller roads. We saw beautiful black winged stilts swooping above us but sadly failed to capture them on film and also scores of cattle egrets following in the wake of a tractor. The unmistakable whiff of pigs now filled our nostrils and our approach sent a quiver of excitement through the pink porkers who grunted loudly as they saw us. In quick succession we came upon more abandoned roadside chairs and the Clear Green Temple (碧清寺) before hitting a long stretch of a busier main road.
We were now doing our utmost to stay on the shady, rather than The Sunny Side Of The Street, as we’d run out of sunscreen and the complete lack of anything other than tiny stores and betel nut stands meant we couldn’t acquire any more. Sadly, there was little shade to be had; even when the sun dipped behind the clouds, it was only for a short while and it was soon a case of Here Comes The Sun again. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the day we all had glowing red faces, necks and forearms to go with our tired feet and legs.
Eventually we managed to get back onto a series of side roads, although the more pleasant scenery was offset by the complete lack of shade; the solar panels on the farm buildings were enjoying the sun much more than us. Sacks of corn stacked up beside the road broke up the monotony of the long straight stretches and seeing a small roadside temple, we decided to take our final break of the day, perched on the dusty seats at the back. We snacked sparingly as we were conscious that we were getting closer to Beigang and hopefully another feast of wok-fried delights.
The end was now literally in sight; we could see the built up area of Beigang in the distance across the fields, as we strolled past a man slumbering on a roadside chair. Pigeon racing is a popular sport in this part of Taiwan and we saw numerous pigeon lofts perched precariously on the tops of buildings. After passing a large building with hundreds of geese and a graveyard of abandoned vehicles we came upon a surprising sight; a young family showing off a baby to their elderly relatives. Then, just a few minutes later, at yet another temple, we spied a grandfather with a young boy on a scooter. Two children spotted within a few minutes; two more than we had seen all day. Predictably the grandfather encouraged the young boy to say “hello” to us but he remained dumbstruck, no doubt thinking “Who are these scarlet-faced strangers?” Oh well, Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.
Finally, we hit the main road into Beigang and observed a crew of workmen laying down a new pavement, which we happily christened with our dusty boots. Our destination was the Beigang Chaotian Temple so we ignored the enticing sign pointing to the Beigang Bestial Business Market and soon arrived at the lantern strewn temple. Outside the main entrance to the temple was a wide street full of the typical temple tourist tat – the local variety of mooncake, huge bags of nuts, incense sticks and so on – this all looked remarkably familiar and reminded us of Lukang on one of our earlier walks.
Now it was time to head for the restaurant that Elaine had expertly located and she plotted a course through the narrow, but absolutely delightful, old back streets of Beigang. This was a lovely way to end our walk as we strolled through the streets festooned with lanterns and adorned with brightly painted murals and even huge colourful fans on one wall. A poster showing a man sat on a large plastic rooster caught our eye and then further down the street, Tim was able to leap on the real thing; this is how to find joy in small things.
We were now in the original part of Beigang with old shophouses, including one selling ancient scales and weighing machines that looked like it hadn’t seen a customer for decades. Excitement (and hunger) mounted as we closed in on our desired restaurant and then, round one last corner, there it was. In we rolled and in no time cold beer and mouthwatering food were on the table. Tim even splurged on a bottle of Kinmen’s finest Kaoliang Liquor and after consuming a few glasses of this throat threatening treat, he waxed lyrical about his upcoming Mando-rap video. Set in the backseat of a taxi in Tainan and featuring well-known horror movie characters, it would appear to be a cross between Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Grandmaster Flash rapping in Mandarin. It seems sure to be another winner and if you’re not familiar with the work of Tainan’s magnificent Mando-rapping maestro, click here for a link to his last video, which extols the virtues of Taipei in the 90’s – https://youtu.be/HjGpDt8wXis?si=C9teH2u3cduBdl-P
Having eaten and drunk our fill, we hopped into a taxi and headed for the Chiayi High Speed Rail Station after another fun filled day in a part of Taiwan that most Taiwanese rarely visit.
Total Distance Walked Today 26.4km.
Distance Walked in Total 539.6km.
End of Day 27. By Richie Rich
SONG APPENDIX
The wind at our heels – This is slightly obscure but the song “The Whole Of The Moon” by the Waterboys features the lyrics:
You were there in the turnstiles, With the wind at your heels,
You stretched for the stars, And you know how it feels.
Mr. Blue Sky – song by the Electric Light Orchestra.
Lovely Day – song by Bill Withers.
Pulling Mussels From A Shell – song by Squeeze.
A Horse With No Name – song by America.
Crazy Horses – song by The Osmonds.
Houses Of The Holy – Album by Led Zeppelin.
Wild Horses – song by The Rolling Stones.
The Sunny Side Of The Street – song covered by numerous artists including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra.
Here Comes The Sun – song by The Beatles.
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye – song by Soft Cell.
Picture This – song by Blondie.
Today’s journey – note that google maps is showing the quickest way but our journey was mainly down side roads and took over seven hours in total.
The above map shows how far we’ve covered in total.