December 17-20 Tainan (Fuward Hotel) – 71 km day ride

Gordon:  We are spending three nights in Tainan, the oldest city in Taiwan.  It was a Dutch colony for a few decades in the 17th century before falling under Chinese control.  Tainan was the capital of Taiwan for more than 200 years, until 1885.  It contains the oldest temples and the oldest equivalent of a college (a Confucius temple that was established in the 17th century).

We spent a day on a temple walking tour laid out in one of our guidebooks.  Without having the cultural background temples in Taiwan are a bit of a mystery to us, but like a European church they are generally fascinating to walk through.  Temples here may be erected in honour of a god, a historical figure that is also a god, Buddha, or the Taoist religion.  A temple often has separate chambers devoted to different gods.  The religious observances seem to be similar, and involve the burning of incense and spirit money (stacks of specially printed paper), and the offering of fruit and meat.  Like the dietary restrictions in Leviticus, some fruits, meats and fishes are suitable offerings, and others would anger the gods. (Don’t even think of bringing beef, dog, swamp eel or loach.)

The temples are open to all and visits are encouraged.  There are a few rules of conduct, but the Taiwanese are easy going and a Western visitor is unlikely to cause offence.  Temples are often set in groves of shady and exotic banyan trees, and they smell of incense.  At night they are attractively lit.  We often pop into a number of temples during the course of a day.

On our second full day in Tainan we cycled out to the westernmost point of the country (a lighthouse), passing through an extensive wetland area of mangroves and mudflats.  There is a national park, the raison d’être of which is to provide a protected wintering area for the endangered black faced spoonbill.  The park provides a numbers of blinds to observe the wildlife, some staffed by rangers.  At one blind we were able to observe a large flock of spoonbills, as well as other birds, through spotting scopes set up by English speaking rangers.

Our excursions were delightful, but to be honest our real purpose for staying in Tainan was to access the buffet breakfast at a large hotel.  We may have only cycled 650 kms so far, but our focus on food is intensifying.  Our hotel did not disappoint, with an extensive and delicious range of Western and Chinese dishes on offer.  We are so excited that we have one more go at the trough before we leave the city tomorrow morning.