Beyond The Maple Tree

Our first stop in the Philippines was Puerto Princesa.  We didn't have any special reason to go here other than it being the best flight  that we could find from Taipei to Palawan (ie. shortest duration with a reasonable price, but.. it departed at 1:30am on New Years Day).  

There isn't much to do in Puerto Princesa other than visit the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River UNESCO site, which is now one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.  At 8.2km long, it’s one of the longest underground rivers in the world. 

Merry Christmas!
On Christmas day, we took a 2-hour train to Taipei where we planned to spend a few days finishing our visit to Taiwan.  The train was SO busy that we weren't able to book seats for the trip, so, we ended up standing in the train's door-area for most of the trip.  

We originally had plans to do a bunch of day trips outside of the city, but the surrounding weather wasn't exactly cooperating.  So far, we'd had a really good visit of several Taiwan sites and we could see that the trains and attractions were getting busy for the holidays, so instead of fighting the conditions, we decided to just stay in the city to visit closer sites. 

Elephant Mountain Trail (and friends)
We went to a popular nearby mountain called Xiangshan (means "Elephant Mountain" in Chinese), to hike the Elephant, Tiger, Lion and Leopard peaks.  The ~1.5km hike to Elephant peak is only about 183m high, but you can see the nice view points of Taipei 101 and the surrounding area.  To make the hike longer, we continued along the trails to visit all of the other animal peaks, but the best view was from the Elephant peak.

You can't visit Taiwan without a stop at Taipei 101 - Taipei’s iconic skyscraper with a big shopping area around.  We had hoped to visit the Starbucks at the top of Taipei 101, but sadly discovered that it is currently closed.  Instead, we checked out the mall area and had dinner at the popular restaurant called Din Tai Fung, known for their XiaoLongBao (Soup Dumplings).

Bubble Tea is milk tea with a bunch of tapioca balls at the bottom.  Taichung is one of the cities that claims to be the birthplace of the famous drink, so one of the first things we did here was to visit the local tea house claiming to be the original inventor: Chun Shui Tang Siwei.  You can read about the bubble tea origin debate here: Who invented bubble tea?

Although the Chun Shui Tang bubble tea prices were very high for Taiwan (170 TWD compared to 50-60 TWD at most other places), we decided to have dinner here.  Both the bubble tea and food turned out to be really good (especially the Beef Noodle Soup which had an amazingly rich broth).  Since it had been a cold rainy day,  the sit-down dinner with warm soup and sweet chewy bubble tea made for a perfect way to end the evening.

Not far from our hotel, there was a small street dedicated to anime, called Animation Lane.  Since we had such a nice time visiting the art areas of Kaohsiung, we decided to check it out.  The animation lane area was fairly small, but the art is really nicely done.  When we were there, you could also see the sketches of their next project in the works for Dragon Ball.

The rest of our time in Taichung was spent walking the streets of the city where we saw temples, historic Japanese buildings, craft markets, parks, and a really fun dessert place called Miyahara that looks like it was teleported here from Harry Potter.

As usual, we finished our day at Yizhong Night Market.  Our favourite dishes at this night market were a warm Korean-style seaweed purple-rice roll with kimchi & pork floss (really good and not greasy!) and an egg-cheese-thai-basil scallion-pancake sandwich (greasy but crispy, chewy, and so tasty).

A lot of locals and travel blogs recommended visiting Sun Moon Lake, one of the "8 Views of Taiwan" (according to the Taiwan government).  Since the forecast predicted 1 day without rain while we were in Taichung, we decided to give it a try.  

From Taichung, the only way to get to Sun Moon Lake is by bus (or private car/scooter).  We tried to catch the first bus of the day, but it passed our stop because it was completely full (despite it being a weekday).  We opted to walk to the bus stop at the start of the route (near the Kaohsiung main train station) to improve our chances of getting on, and managed to catch the next bus.  After a 2 hour bus ride, we finally arrived at the lake and found our way to Giant Bikes to rent some bikes for the day.

The bike ride around the lake is about 33 km with a mix of dedicated pathways and windy roads shared with cars.  The Giant staff recommended we go clock-wise around the lake so that we would be biking on the side of the road/path that is nearest to the lake.  

Our first stop was the Wenwu temple, which is the biggest temple on the lake.  Compared to the other temples around the lake, this one was the most worth visiting (in our opinion).  

Our next stop was at the village and wharf on the South side of the lake where we wandered the Ita Thao shopping district and sampled some local-made vinegar and snacks from one of the vendors. 

We made some quick stops at a couple more temples and the futuristing-looking Xingshang Visitor Center, before returning the bikes and taking the bus home.  

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan and is known for its clear calm waters surrounded by mountains and forests.  Compared to the lakes and mountain scenery that we are accustomed to in Canada, this lake wasn't anything particularly new or unique for us (first world problems 😂), but we did still enjoy our relaxing cycling activity around the lake.

From Guanshan, we took a local train to Taitung to catch a TRA train to Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan. 

One of our main reasons to go to Taiwan was to do a cycling tour that Jen’s dad highly recommended: a 3-day bike ride along the East coast of the island.  Unfortunately the tour that David did was already fully booked, but we were able to book a similar 3-day tour that was slightly shorter (126 km instead of 160 km), called the Giant Adventures - East Rift Valley Cycling Tour.

Day 1
Our first day started with a bus ride from Hualien to Guangfu where we had lunch.  We then walked to a nearby parking lot where we met the tour support team and all of the pre-sized bikes and water bottles were pre-labelled and laid out.  

After an explanation of the equipment and bike safety (in Mandarin), we adjusted our seats and tested out our bikes to ensure everything was in good working order.  We then started our easy 26 km ride from Guangfu to Ruisui.  

The weather was not on our side - it was raining fairly hard at times, but the Giant team was experienced and well prepared, providing us with rain covers and shower caps to go over our helmets.  It was a little chilly, but we still enjoyed the ride.  

We made a number of stops along the way, including a sugar factory where we sampled a Popsicle made from Roselle juice.  It was very unique but delicious!

Our first hotel, Hoya Spa Hotel, was at the Riusui hotsprings, so we were given vouchers to use the hotsprings before meeting up for dinner.  It was perfect for warming up after the chilly riding day.

Day 2
The day 2 weather was a bit better - no sun yet, but at least the rain had stopped. This was our biggest day - 60 km from Ruisui to Chishang through various rice fields and villages.  

Even though there were about 40 people in our group, the tour was amazingly well organized.  In addition to a lead rider, there were also 2 other support team riders in the middle and back of the pack.  There were 2 support vans that followed us the entire route - one for bike support and one for photos and snacks.  Anytime we approached a section of road where there was a specific turn that we needed to follow, someone from the support van or team magically appeared at the intersection to point us in the right direction.  

The bikes that they provided were excellent quality and in great condition (super fun to ride!) and if anything went wrong with a bike, the support van was there to resolve it immediately.  There was also a photographer taking pictures of us along the way, which they uploaded to the cloud and shared with everyone via QR code at the end of the day.

We finished our day at the Taiwan Sugar Pond Makino Resort. 

Day 3
On our last day was a 40 km ride from Chishang to Guanshan, and lucky for us, the sun came out!  

Since we couldn't understand Mandarin, some of the daily events were a surprise for us.  We started our 3rd day pushing our bikes around the property of our hotel and we had no idea why.. we arrived near a fence when suddenly a hippo popped its head out of the water!  It turned out our hotel was in an animal park of some sort, so we spent the first part of our day walking around to see the animals.

The rest of the day's ride was spent cycling through the local rice fields where international artists had art instalments in various areas along the route. 

We also visited a tree in the middle of the rice fields that was apparently made famous because of a handsome actor that biked to drink tea under that tree, in an old EVA Air advertisement. We just went to another tree nearby to take individual pictures as the original tree was quite busy  

In addition to all of the snack stops along the route, we were fed huge breakfast/lunch/dinners with a good variety of local dishes.  Many of the areas that we visited are known for having very good rice - we thought "umm it's just rice..." but it actually did taste great and had a nice slightly chewy and sticky texture that we enjoyed.  Along the route, the tour support team also picked up some delicious dragon fruits that were red on the inside and the sweetest dragon fruit we ever had!

We ended our tour at the Guanshan train station.  After returning our equipment and having our last snacks from the back of the support van, we were given bento box dinners to take with us on the train-ride home.

If you happen to be planning a trip to Taiwan, we definitely recommend the bike tours with Giant Adventures.  Here is the link to their tours: Giant Cycling World Travel

We came to Hualien because it was the starting point of our Giant East Coast cycle tour, but we also wanted to arrive here a couple of days early to taste the local foods and see Avatar 2 before starting the bike trip.  

Hualien is a nice medium-sized city - no super touristy sites (other than Taroko National park), but plenty of interesting streets and areas to stroll through. Our main goal was to eat typical Taiwanese food from this region, and we were not disappointed. 

The first thing we wanted to try was a fried egg and scallion pancake (Cong You Bing - 40 TWD, ~$1.75 cad)) that Jen's mom told us about. There seemed to be 2 competing stalls near our B&B - the Yellow Car and Blue Car.. of course, we had to try them both.  Both reportedly have hour-long lineups but we decided to try going at an off-hour (ie. 3pm) and managed to avoid the crowds.  Both were really delicious, but overall, we liked the blue car better as they make and serve each individual order one at a time so the pancake is hot and super crispy when you eat it.  The yellow car, in comparison, seemed to be making and serving the pancakes out in batches - probably faster for them to process the line this way during busy times, but it did result in our pancake being lukewarm and less crispy by the time we got it.  Besides the fact that everything is deep fried, what really makes these pancakes so good is that the egg yolk is still hot and runny.. it's then surrounded by a bit of delicious brown sauce and crispy onion-flavoured dough.. mmmmmm! 🤤

Most of the rest of our delicious food experiences were at the Dongdamen Night Market, where we found a great variety of food stalls to try. 

Stinky Tofu Fries 

Puffy Taro and Sweet Potato Balls

Roasted Corn (~$8cad - the most expensive piece of corn we’ve ever eaten!)

Coffin Bread

Passion Fruit Bubble Tea (40 TWD, ~$1.75 cad)

Mashed Potato Omelette 

BeiGang Spring Rolls (50 TWD, $2.25 cad - our favourite discovery!)

Ever since Jen's dad and his friend told us about the cycle tour that they did in Taiwan, we've wanted to go.  Since Taiwan only recently started re-opening post-covid, we were a bit unsure about how the self-testing and quarantine worked so we decided to arrive a week early before starting the bike tour.  It turned out that as long as you self-tested negative every other day (for 7 days), you could still go out to eat/travel/visit, so after staying a couple of days in Taipei, we decided to take a train to XinCheng to visit Taroko National Park.

On our first day in Taroko we checked out the major highlights.  We took a local bus over to the furthest attraction and then slowly made our way back. 

We decided to return to Bali because we found a great direct flight from Brisbane, it's on the way to South-East Asia, and we love Ubud.  

Originally, we thought we might visit some new places in Bali or Indonesia, but after spending a few days relaxing in Ubud, we decided to stay in Ubud longer to research and plan our trip and get up-to-date on our posts.  We don't normally plan much in advance, but with uncertainty around covid restrictions, visa constraints, and having specific tour/friend&family meetup dates to manage, we needed to be a bit more prepared for this trip.

Despite spending a lot of time in Ubud researching and planning, we still had a great time and wanted to highlight some of it here.

We again stayed at Green Field Hotel (one of our 2 usual/favourite spots in Ubud).  It has a really quiet setting, 2 relaxing and well-kept pools, a wonderful breakfast next to the rice fields.. we could not ask for more.

We are creatures of habit and although we tried a few different restaurants, we really frequented a select few:

• D’Gamma Warung: A super small local place (3 tables) in a small alley that serves delicious food at a really low price. We could order 1 appetizer, 2 vegetarian meals, and 2 fruit juices for about $12 CAD
• Kakiang bakery:  Really nice desserts - we liked the Milles-crepes, the Hokkaido Cheesetart, and Jamu Juice (tamarind+tumeric medicine drink)
• Cinema Paradiso: Small Movie Theatre where you can use part of the movie ticket price towards food.  The food is ordered and served in the theatre and is really good. We ended up seeing Amsterdam, The Women King and Triangle of Sadness. 
• Twist Ubud: A slightly pricier restaurant that serves really delicious curries, burgers, and drinks.

We also (finally) tried the Balinese Snake Fruit (yum!) and some local gelato.

Walking around town

Although our resort is quiet, relaxing, and has one of the best views of the rice fields, we did venture out on a few explorations around Ubud to see how much has changed since we were last here.  Walking along the streets of Ubud is still very noisy and nerve wracking with crazy scooter & car traffic, narrow roads, and little to no sidewalks.  That being said, if you manage to find your way to the smaller streets or go a bit outside of the city center, you can find some interesting and nice things to see.

Rice fields

Monkeys

We saw one monkey drinking water out of a dripping tap.  We thought it was pretty clever... until another monkey came along and actually knew how to turn the tap on (full blast)!

Doors

Campuhan Ridge Walk 

We had done this walk on out previous trips, however, this time the path was paved and the village at the end now has a new resort with awesome lounge chairs, chill music, and an amazing infinity pool with a beautiful Instagram view 😂. 

That ends the list of the fun, sunny experiences we had.  

Unlike our past trips, we actually experienced a LOT of very rainy days in Bali this time.  We normally don't post about the rainy days or when we are stuck inside sick (mainly because pictures of that wouldn't be very interesting/fun 😂), but it is inevitably part of travelling and we usually make the best of it getting a massage, trip-planning, tidying pictures, catching up on our blog posts and movies.  

Laron Swarm

One night, it actually rained so much that some of the other resorts flooded and lost power so the guests had to move over to our hotel.  

On the next evening following the rain, we had a crazy new experience... We first noticed that there were some unusually large (huge!) geckos out hunting on the walls of the open-air restaurant that we were eating dinner at. We assumed that particular restaurant just happened to have big geckos - we thought little of it and headed back to our hotel.  We saw a few more geckos than usual on our way through the resort - they are such fascinating critters to watch!  

Each evening, the hotel turns on all of the balcony lights so that guests can safely walk through the resort, to their rooms.  This evening, as we turned the corner to our room, we both froze at the sight of thousands.. felt like millions.. of 2 cm-long flying insects swarming the front balconies and stairwell of our entire building.. there were SOOO many of them - we've never seen anything like it.  It was shocking.. it reminded us of the bug-filled tunnel from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!  Even though it's not something we will easily forget, we do wish that we had taken a video or pictures of the experience as it's hard to really describe what it was like to see, not to mention the chills/goosebumps you get from such an unexpected encounter 😂.  

Anyhow, we managed to sneak close enough to turn off the balcony light and went to reception to let them know what was happening at our building.  They said they would send someone over to clean up the bugs, so we just had to wait for a while before returning to our room and all was good.  Apparently these termite swarms happen every year after really big rain falls - they all take flight and swarm toward the lights to mate, then they all shed their wings and crawl out to the soil to start their colony.  The whole thing lasts a couple of hours and then just suddenly ends.  The only evidence that it ever happened is the huge mess of shed wings scattered all over the ground!

Regretfully we didn't take any videos or pictures of this (we were too much in shock?), but while waiting for it to end we did try to google to try to understand what was happening, and found this article about the Laron (aka Flying Termite) Swarms.

Normally we shop around for tours, but this time we decided to go with our hotel's recommendation for a downhill-cycling tour from Mount Batur.  Without knowing the details, we showed up at 8am and were taken by minivan to a mix of stops along the way to Mount Batur. Our first quick stop was at Tegallalang rice terraces, where we snapped a few pictures and hopped back in the van.