Day 5: 15 May 2023, Monday
Day 3 of our Tour de Taiwan RTI, and we’re feeling good…we went for breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant at 6:30am, followed by the usual loading up, warming up, gearing up and briefing of the day’s itinerary by Jeffrey. Today would be a “relaxed” day of cycling from Taichung to Chiayi (嘉義), virtually flat with no climbs and only 96km long. It’s funny how I can it’s relaxing when it’s 96km, because we covered 91.3km and 103.9km for the past two days, and there were hills on those two days so they were tougher. At this point, anything less than 100km with no hills is considered an easy day.
We started cycling at 7:35am. The first 17km in the city centre was heavy with traffic, with many busy thoroughfares and big junctions to cross. It wasn’t that relaxing because we had to pay more attention when cycling in close quarters. We gathered at the traffic lights and crossed the junctions together, while being expertly shepherded by the Giant crew.
We had our first break at 8:45am at Qie Nan sports centre (茄南活動中心), at the 16.8km mark. As always, there were fresh fruits waiting for us at the rest stops. Today’s fruit of the day was passion fruit. I had never eaten passion fruit by itself before so it was something new to me. Our Taiwanese friends Jacky and Gary showed us the best way to eat passion fruit.
Firstly, shake the fruit violently to release the seeds from the shell, then use the fruit to massage yourself by hitting it on your thighs repeatedly. Next, shake it some more to mix the juicy pulp and seeds together. Once done, gently squeeze the fruit to create a slit and open up a hole, and you’re now ready to slurp down the contents. So, the best way to enjoy passion fruit is not to eat it, but to drink it! Unfortunately, I squeezed my passion fruit too hard and some of the juice squirted out and landed on my cycling jersey sleeve. Always a first for everything I guess!
After the short break, we resumed cycling at 9:00am. The scenery was more of the same, nothing remarkable. We reached our next rest stop at Xi Hu Tang Chang (溪湖糖廠) sweet factory at 10:05am, at the 36.28km mark. Here, the Giant crew treated us to ice-cream, where the slab of ice-cream was sandwiched between two pieces of butter crackers. So delicious!
Jeffrey also gave us a short tutorial on proper riding posture. He taught us that our bent elbows can act as suspension because our hybrid/road bikes don’t have in-built suspension. While riding, we should utilise our core stomach muscles to maintain proper posture, and our buttocks should rest on the widest part of the seat. To optimise efficiency, the ball of the big toe should be at the pedal, and we should cycle in an up and down motion, not sideways. It was great to have these little lessons to improve our cycling techniques.
At 10:33am, we continued our journey. The scenery changed from city to agricultural as we cycled past farmlands where rice, pineapple, vegetables and other crops were grown. Like the previous two days, it was cloudy with the temperature hovering around 24 degrees C so it was very comfortable.
After crossing the huge, red steel bridge Xi Luo Da Qiao (西螺大橋), we stopped at a large grass field at 11:25am to take our obligatory daily group photo with the bridge as the backdrop. The iconic bridge stretches 1,939 metres and was once a hub for transportation in Taiwan’s Western corridor. Us three MAMILs had grown quite close to the three Taiwanese guys – Jacky, Gary and Steven, so we used the opportunity to take many goofy photos here. It is really fun to join a tour like this because you can make new friends who share a common interest in cycling.
We didn’t linger for long because our lunch stop was just 1km away. We reached Xi Luo township (西螺) at 11:55am, at the 55km mark. After parking our bikes, we went to a small restaurant called Qin Lian Wan Guo Cheng (琴連碗粿城) for lunch. It was a small eatery so we split into groups of six to have our meal.
Wan Guo (碗粿) is steamed rice bowl cake topped with a slightly sweet brown sauce and minced meat. We had tried Wan Guo at Raohe Night Market on our first night in Taipei but the one here was much nicer. We also tried the glutinous rice cake (筒仔米糕) and Si Shen Tang (四神湯), which is traditionally made from four Chinese medicines: yam, gorgon seeds (a type of water lily), lotus seeds and poria (a type of mushroom), added to pig intestines and cooked into a soup. However, in Taiwan, barley is used to replace poria, and only barley and pig intestines are used to make the soup.
After lunch, we had time to explore the surrounding area. Yanping Old Street (延平老街) is a delightful, historical street with many old and well-preserved buildings. This used to be a bustling trading centre but its importance declined after the completion of the National Freeway 1 in 1978, which took away most of the traffic. We were given about an hour to explore the area on our own.
We walked along the main street, which still housed several shops plying old trades like soy sauce and peanut oil. Many of them looked very old and it appeared as if time had stood still here. The entire area was very quiet and we were the only tourists around.
There were some signs of rejuvenation as we saw a few cafes selling coffee and ice cream. I popped into one and ordered a latte. The owner of the shop loved owls (maybe “obsessed” is a more appropriate word) and there were owl-related curios of all kinds scattered all over the shop. I can relate to having an obsession for certain things, so I love shops like these, which have plenty of character.
After a good break, we resumed cycling at 1:15pm. The sun came out and it got a little hot but it wasn’t too bad. We cycled past more padi fields, taking in the agricultural landscape scenery. While riding, I heard a thud and realised that the plastic mount attaching my GoPro camera to the handlebar broke and my GoPro bounced on the road several times. Thankfully, it was sturdy enough and it was not damaged, save for a few dents. However, I didn’t have a spare mount so I couldn’t record video clips for the rest of the day’s ride.
We took another short 20-minute break at a temple in Dou Nan (斗南) township, at the 72.1km mark, where we had freshly cut papaya for refreshments. Chinese temples are a dime a dozen in Taiwan but I love visiting them. Shun An Gong (順安宮) is a typical Chinese temple with upturned “swallow tail” ends, similar to our traditional Hokkien temples in Singapore like Thian Hock Keng Temple. However, I noticed that unlike Singapore, many temples in Taiwan have Fu Lu Shou (福祿壽) statues on the ridge at the centre of the roof, above the main entrance.
We resumed cycling at 2:30pm and reached Chiayi Performing Arts Center, our last rest stop for the day at 3:18pm, at the 88.5km mark. Here, our entire Singapore contingent of 15 riders gathered for a photo, our only complete group shot for the trip. We only had a short distance left so we pressed on at 3:30pm, and reached our Maison de Chine hotel at Chiayi at 4:05pm.
Sadly, my Apple Watch ran out of battery before we reached the end of our ride, so I didn’t manage to capture my stats from today’s ride. However, Jacky’s smartwatch worked well so I borrowed his Strava readings. It showed that we cycled 96.64km from Taichung to Chiayi today, with an elevation gain of 282 metres. After three days of cycling, my legs felt a little heavy now, but not aching that badly yet.
For the first time, we had three beds in our hotel room so we didn’t have to share a bed tonight. After taking our well-deserved showers, we met up with the rest of the gang at 6:00pm and went out for dinner. Tonight’s dinner was not provided so we had to get our own, which was good in a way because it gave us flexibility to explore and choose what we wanted to eat. Our Taiwanese friends led us through the streets and brought us to a place called Ah Lou Shi Huo Ji Rou Fan (阿樓師火雞肉飯) at Yanping Street.
It was a very typical Taiwanese, no-frills eatery where the locals frequent. A large portion of the signature turkey rice cost only NT$40 (S$1.76). The assortment of soups range between NT$15 and NT$25 a bowl. We ordered the turkey rice, some green leafy vegetables and bamboo shoots to share. It was like eating home-cooked food, very comforting.
After a hard day of cycling, we rewarded ourselves with local beer. We tried the 18 Days Draft Beer, which is fresher because it is unpasteurised and has to be consumed within 18 days of production. And because of its limited shelf life, it is rarely sold in retail stores and harder to come by. The eatery didn’t have beer glasses so we poured the beer into small bowls to share. First time drinking beer from a bowl! Including the beer and the food, the total bill for the six of us came up to only NT$360 (S$15.84).
After that, we walked through the night market at Wenhua Road, which was lined with street food stalls and huge advertising banners hanging on both sides of the road. Everything looked delicious but we were not that hungry so we only bought a small sweet pastry to try.
We then satisfied our bubble tea craving before walking over to the GIANT/Liv shop to take a look at the bicycles. We then called it a night and were in bed before 10:30pm. And just like that, we were one-third of the Taiwan RTI journey done, with six more days to go. So fast!
