Spring break in Kenting

With a week to go before Spring break, and after a cool, cloudy, rainy March, we decided to go to Kenting, Taiwan for some sun with an overnight in Taipei on the way back. Kenting is about the same latitude as Hawaii, so we were looking forward to nice weather!

Taiwan has gotten pretty popular as a quick getaway, but we were able to book our open-jaw airplane tickets to Kaohsiung and out of Taipei and the High Speed Rail tickets in between these two cities - the southern-most and northern-most of the HSR stations, as well as hotel rooms.

Paul took me to Kenting (and Taipei, HK, and through the Pearl River Delta) on my first overseas trip after we were engaged, and our extended family took a whirl-wind bus tour of Taiwan at the beginning of summer 2007 on our bi-annual family vacation spending just one night in Kenting, so it was nice to go back and stay for a longer time. This time, we spent three nights right off the main road where the night market is, and right down the street from the beautiful Xiao Wan (Little Bay) in front of Caesar Park, the resort we stayed at over 20 years ago when that resort was pretty much the only place to stay and Kenting was a quiet little place. (The area was made popular in recent years since it was in a movie and because of a huge music festival that happens in the Spring.)

Taiwan is also getting popular as a bicycling destination, especially the East coast and where we were. After our buffet breakfast, we borrowed the hotel bikes and rode to the fishing port Houbihu Marina, to have a delicious seafood lunch right in one of the port buildings off the water. When riding along the main highway into town there was a separate bike path, and after we turned off toward the coast, we had a bike path/median to ride on. It was warm and sunny, and breezy in some areas, and our ride through beautiful rolling hills was made tougher due to the fact that these hotel bikes were only one speed cruisers! We thought about taking a snorkeling boat trip, but the decision was made against since we had to return the bikes by 3pm. Unfortunately on the way back Maggie got a flat and Paul ended up pushing the bike about 8km. Our total for the day was about 24km. The kids and I rode back and noted all the access paths marked to get to dive sites along the way through the National Park. Alex had his snorkel gear, but we decided to go after we returned the bikes and cooled off a bit in our air conditioned room.

 

Paul made it back and said the clerk was surprised we rode so far since most guests usually just ride the couple km length of the main strip/night market. He went for a snack and we changed into our suits and walked down the road to Xiao Wan. We walked to the far end of the beach where the lava was so Alex could go snorkeling. The water was cool at first, but actually a great temperature to just float around outside the break. It was quiet for the first 20 minutes or so, then busloads of noisy high-schoolers arrived on their Spring break... Paul arrived during the mayhem and jumped into the water. They weren't allowed to swim since there were no lifeguards and there weren't enough chaperones to watch them, so it was a little quieter away from the beach! After about an hour, they were shepherded off the beach - ah, peace and quiet again... We dried off and went to the beachside bar run by the resort to enjoy the sunset, then went back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner.

We strolled through the night market checking out what snacks there were on offer, but ate at actual restaurants for our dinners (and had a snack or two from the stands later in the evening). We had Italian the first night and Thai the second. Maggie, the bubble-tea aficionado that she is, tried almost all the shops and stands that offered it! (Of course, she shared, so we all had a few sips, too!)

After riding one-speed bikes the first day, we decided to rent electric mopeds the second day. We rode south first, stopping at a few popular sights to walk around and take photos, then stopped by a roadside shack for lunch on the way back before we changed batteries and headed north to another bay called Bai Sha Wan (White Sand Bay). We parked on the northern end at Happy Panda (a tent camping resort) and walked south away from all the people to about the middle of the beach where the roped off swimming area was. At first I thought maybe they were shark nets, like in HK, but it was only marked off as the swimming area so you wouldn't get run over by the jetskis that people hired for ride or a tow on an inflatable raft. Since it was a weekday, it was nice and quiet where we were and enjoyed swimming a bit and bobbing up and down as the waves came in. This beach was quite steep, and the surf was stronger, so that you could see the ripples of sand formed by the wave action on the sea floor, but the water temperature was delightful and we spent a pleasant hour or so in the water before riding our electric mopeds back at their max speeds of less than 30km/hr - still fun though!

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and caught the bus to the Zuo Ying (Kaohsiung) HSR station. This station was right next to a shopping mall where we had lunch compared to Tainan HSR station we were at last Dec in the middle of nowhere! We arrived in Taipei, walked across the street to our hotel, and made plans to see cousins for dinner. We ate beef stew noodles at Wang Ji and then went to Shi Lin Night Market for dessert and snacks. The only reason we scheduled our overnight in Taipei was to eat beef stew noodles, so the next day, before heading to the airport we went to Yong Kang Street - a delicious finish to our Spring Break trip to Taiwan!

Paul's fav - shaved ice with 'bu-ding'