Thursday December 4th. The morning started with an excellent breakfast at the Fuward Hotel, our Tainan base of choice. Tim turned up from home at 9:30—apparently unfed, but still cheerful—and after some football chat, we hopped into Mr. Shih’s taxi. He was baffled by our destination (again, not a tourist spot), but recognised Tim as a Tainan regular, so agreed to take us.
A brief detour to 7-Eleven turned into an unexpected act of public service: Elaine helped a blind gentleman navigate the ATM while locals hovered suspiciously. Despite all the wonderful things about Taiwan, there are still some very strange superstitions when it comes to helping people you don’t know and this was one of those situations whereby an obviously blind gentleman, complete with white cane and eyes that weren’t able to look at anyone, was in the 7-11 trying to withdraw cash from the ATM and nobody was willing to help.
7-11 staff are forbidden from handling cash other than at the tills and the locals in the store all refused to be of assistance, as they were probably suspicious of a scam, so Elaine led him to the ATM machine, punched in his security code, handed him his cash, then led him back to the counter. It was all a bit bizarre, but gave Tim, Rich and Martyn lots of time to chit chat with the lovely Mr. Shih.
Heading north, we passed numerous new high-rise developments where rice paddies once were and to pass the time, Elaine innocently asked Mr. Shih to guess Tim’s age. His answer—“over 70”—became the day’s running joke. Tim didn’t hear it, due to his aged hearing, which somehow made it funnier and it became the theme for the day’s walk – poor old Tim!
Arriving at the coast we asked Mr. Shih to take the obligatory start of walk photo and were yelled at by the coast guard, who was obviously bored and had nothing better to do than try his hand and voice at traffic control. After posing for a quick photo with the taxi driver, we persuaded our ever-so-charming coast guard to take another—this time with the little harbour framed neatly behind us. Once we’d exchanged the usual interrogation—“Why are you here?”, “Where are you going?”, “Are you quite sure you’re not mad?”—we finally headed south along the shoreline.
With the wind easing off, the walk became wonderfully calm. We strolled along the sea wall, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of waves hitting the sandbar before rolling lazily onto the shore. Signs warned that the area was home to crabs, but if they were there, they were either hiding or on a seasonal break; we didn’t see a single one.
Our first rest stop was at a small coast guard station situated on the top of the sea wall. The coast guard came out to say “Hi” and to greet his friend who arrived on a motorbike shortly after us. Elaine asked if there had been any sightings of vessels from China, to which he replied, “no”, which was a huge relief, but when asked how far away China was, he was clueless, so that was somewhat worrying and hopefully things will remain peaceful.
Back over the sea wall, we ambled along a vast stretch of clean beach, which is quite unusual for the West coast and the only other humans were a couple of fishermen and a crane operator who was maneuvering a large metal sheet which reminded us of the ‘pin’ which you put on a google map.
Suddenly, the calm and serenity of the walk was interrupted by a large, orange reptile – an iguana. It was quite hallucinatory and we were totally bemused as to what it was doing casually chilling on this stretch of beach. Having consulted with our Wildlife expert, Henry Lin, we were informed that these are an invasive species and are a huge problem in the south and that we should report it. We also suggested that perhaps Tim could wrestle with it, ‘Crocodile Dundee’ style, but concerns for his aging body prevented this. Poor old Tim.
Having recovered from our ‘Jurassic Park’ moment, we ambled on and reaching the end of the beach, headed into the mangrove and aquaculture pond area, passing lengths of pipe attached to plastic barrels which are used to float the pipes out into the sea. There was a small inlet on our right and the opposite bank was where we headed, but unfortunately there were no bridges, so we were forced to walk in a huge circle on the banks of the various ponds. There were some major engineering projects happening and our path was at one point blocked by heavy plant, as well as a mechanical man directing the traffic flow. He was somewhat quieter that the coast guard; it was all happening in this part of Tainan today!
Once ‘on the other side’ we needed a place to rest and refresh and having been disappointed with our first choice, strolled on and happened upon a shrine, which conveniently had some plastic stools inside, so we were able to have a seat in the shade.
At the back of the shrine there was a stack of old dentist chairs, but obviously the question was WHY? There was no signage or other clues as to their existence; so we left it at that – strange yet, so normal for Taiwan. NFT – Normal for Taiwan.
Tim redeemed his “elderly” reputation with unexpected card tricks, then suitably revived and entertained we headed towards a bridge leading in the direction of the LuErMen TianHe Temple. This temple wasn’t quite as large and imposing as the one on Day 31, but was very well maintained and was hosting a dance competition for primary students. We watched for a while, brought some cold drinks and then continued southwards.
Martyn was in charge of the directions and did a great job of guiding us off the main roads, through a couple of local villages, which were obviously inhabited by fishermen, gangsters and farmers, as seen from the Local Fisherman’s Association building, various gangster worthy mansions and a modified vehicle randomly parked on the roadside ( a car converted into a fertilizer sprayer). NFT.
Leaving the quiet charm of the villages behind, we rejoined the coastal path and followed it towards the Taijiang National Park. Reaching the headland with Anping in full view to our right, we discovered a small problem: the bridge towering above us had absolutely no pedestrian access. “The Bridges of Tainan County “, has yet to be filmed and probably never will —mainly because Tainan’s bridges seem to be so few and far between!
Undeterred, we grabbed our final, quick snack and water break, consulted Google Maps, inspected a stretch of beach that would be ideal for a late-night rave, then marched out to the main road—walking against the traffic like stubborn salmon—until we finally reached the pavement on the Sicao Bridge.
We were now on the “other side’ and there was an obvious change to our surroundings. Unlike the calm and quiet of the coastal paths, we were now back in civilization, with its many cars, motorbikes and humans. The end of the year and the run up to Chinese New Year is peak Wedding Season here in Taiwan and many couples choose to have their wedding photos taken outdoors; we saw one such couple and gave them a congratulatory “Gong Xi” as we passed.
The sun was beginning to set and the final stretch of the walk took us past the Tainan Yacht club (Formosa East India Yacht Club), which for some reason happened to have a large inflatable sheep outside (maybe a callout to those of us who are from Wales) and then onto the interesting ShenYuan and Anping Nautical City which just happens to have a couple of red UK phone boxes and a London red double decker bus in its grounds – again NFT !
The old (Tim’s) legs were starting to ache and the final kilometer lay ahead, taking us past Anping small fort, with its little cannons and then past a huge old grave yard with some very ornate graves. It was now sunset, so we didn’t have time to go to the fort and the surrounding area, but instead, we made our way to the Anyi bridge to catch the final glimpses of the sun going down.
Anping is one of the oldest non indigenous settlements in Taiwan and here is a link to its history, for the history buffs who are reading – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anping_District
By now, we were rather hungry, having been on the road for over 7 hours and having spotted a restaurant at the base of the bridge, decided it would be a suitable place for dinner. We were the first diners to arrive and having placed our order, were then curious as to why there was so much baseball memorabilia on the walls. We didn’t have to wait long to find the answer.
Half way through dinner, a rather handsome Taiwanese gentleman strolled in and our waitress informed us that he was the owner. We said hello and left him to eat his dinner box. Of course, Elaine had to ask why he wasn’t eating his own restaurant food and he went on to tell us he had experienced a hard night’s drinking the previous evening and was still nursing a slight hangover, so wanted ‘post hangover food’. He was very friendly and proceeded to explain that he was a former professional baseball player, now turned coach and that he was integral in forming the committee responsible for the new Tainan baseball academy and stadium. He also mentioned that another member of the committee was former Tainan Mayor, Lai Ching De, who is now the current president of Taiwan. Learning of this connection to Taiwanese Royalty, we of course had to grab a photo with our baseball star and the President in the background.
Having filled ourselves with a magnificent selection of local seafood and cold beers, it was off home for Tim and onto the High Speed Rail for Elaine, Rich and Martyn. The end of another wonderful day of Walking Taiwan.
End of Day 32. By Elaine.
Total Distance Walked Today 23.63 km.
Total Distance Walked in Total 660.53 km.
