day 14 - kaohsiung to kaohsiung airport
20 km - with the rain in the sky and a ticket from kaohsiung to hong kong in my hand, i couldnt resist changing the date and heading off to hong kong a week early. taiwan has been great, apart from a few days with a stomach bug, and i may miss some nice places, but riding in the rain is no fun. going to a new country, on the other hand, is lots of fun.
i guess its back to my china blog from here. see you.

total in taiwan - 921 km.

day 13 - kaohsiung
15 km - thought id spend a day checking out this bustling port city. unfortunately the rain had other ideas. so, i got wet! the same is forcast for the next week. not good for riding.

day 12 - tainan to kaohsiung
65 km - i left tainan and went to kaohsiung. good food here.

day 11 - tainan
0 km - i just couldnt leave tainan.

day 10 - chiayi to tainan
70 km - has has lots of history. and cheap sushi.

day 9 - fenqihu to chiayi
60 km - with a sore belly, i had an easy day. a big downhill to the western plains. just over two hours of riding and i checked into a nice cheap hotel and rested. AND did my laundry.

day 8 - sun moon lake to fenqihu
145 km - including a 2610 metre pass. was fed, watered and photographed by passing motorists. unfortunately my free dinner turned out to contain some ugly germ that proceeded to make my tummy hurt. stayed at a catholic hostel, complete with swiss nun and polish father, in the remote taiwanese mountains. surreal.

day 7 - hohuan to sun moon lake
105 km - i hit two milestones today. first, i rode to my highest point ever, at 3275 metres high, just to admire the taiwanese fog. then, on a super downhill, i hit my 6000 km mark of this trip. Then, i rode down a lot more.

day 6 - holiu to hohuan
70 km - holiu is 400 metres above sea level. hohuan is 3 kilometres above. say no more.

day 5 - suao to holiu (taroko gorge)
111 km - today's road was a coastal road which i may have expected to be flat. this coastal road, however, was carved into cliffs, that in places rose 1000 metres above the ocean, and had a few precarious landslides thrown in for fun. i turned inland at taiwan's #1 natural destination - taroko gorge, and witnessed a landscape unlike that i have seen before. how and why they put a road here is beyond me. gorgeous.