Only a short cycle today, to the next town. We were suppose to be following the river in the rift valley but this section of the valley has a cliff adjacent to the river. This gave us only two options. Walk the bikes along the river bed or cycle up to the top of the cliff. None of us liked the idea of walking the river bed as the river stones were huge, so up the cliff it was.
Half way up we came across a section of road that has started to fall down the cliff. Taiwan is on a fault line and earthquakes are common. Robert liked the idea of waiting for it to fall into the river below but we had to keep on going.
We also had a laugh at the sign in the next photo. We imagined the Australian translation to the chinese symbols is “bloody steep mate”.
We arrived at LuYe township and decided to stay at a bed and breakfast recommended to me by a Taiwanese guy on facebook. The BandB is on a bicarbonate hot spring. Just fantastic. We had a dip when we arrived and then jump back in after dinner. Floating on my back in the hot water watching the clouds flow past the moon was so relaxing. I wish we had hot springs in back home.
We went to an Awesome theme park called escape.It was very fun. There was Ziplines and high ropes courses. I went in a hoolahooping comp and I got a coconut for winning.
It all started this morning from Simpang. We left after an interrupted nights sleep. Two men were sitting in the reception area having a loud conversation. Our room was just down the hall and their voices echoed down to our room. At 3am I lost my cool and yelled at them. I had to yell at them 4 times and go out into the corridor and stare at them before they stopped talking. The most annoying part was that the two men talking were the hotel night staff.
We hit the road and had a good ride to the next town of Selama. When we arrived we realised that it was not really a town, more like a collection of building with the highlight being a 7/11. We found a Chinese restaurant were the waitress spoke pretty good English. We had a nice lunch of mee ayam sup and orange juice ice.
At lunch we checked out the hotel situation on Google. The hotel situation was not good. We started looking further afield for a place to stay the night. We talked it out with the boys and it was decided that we would venture on to the next town of Kulim, 30km away. We broke the cycle up into 10km chunks and at around the 19km mark it started raining. It was lovely and cool. None of us cared that we were getting covered in mud and grit. There was one beautiful hill that we had to cycle up along the way. It was so steep and remote, the jungle was beautiful and there was a clean babbling brook flowing along the road side.
After a fairly easy 50km cycle we arrived at the Potato Hotel. We don’t know why it is called Potato but it was the cleanest we could find in the area. We showered and relaxed for a while until the kids started to revolt. They wanted out of the hotel room and were bursting with energy. (I’m beginning to think 50km is not long enough to wear out the kids) We checked out TripAdvisor to see what there was to do around the area. Mini golf won out over the charcoal factor, coffee factory or the local zoo.
The mini golf was 5km away from our hotel so we decided to get back on our bikes and ride there. As we left the hotel and headed east we saw dark ominous clouds over the highlands. About half way there, large drops started to fall. Lightning and thunder followed. Luckily for us we were just going under a freeway. We stopped to shelter from the rain. Amazingly there was a large roadside food stall under the freeway. We ordered drinks and the kids joined in a bizarre game of cricket with the local kids involving a piece of 4×2 and rocks.
After an hour the rain stopped and we all decided to head back to the hotel and not worry about playing mini golf.
This morning we woke to a storm. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain. It started around 3am with a hugh clap of thunder. The alarm went off at 6am but we stayed in bed until 7am, waiting for the rain to decrease. When we go on the road it was lovely and cool. Probably the coolest we have felt in three weeks.
During the first hours of cycling every morning, the boys have got into a routine of looking out for a roadside Roti restaurant. Without fail we have discover one every morning for the past few days. Roti for breakfast is our favorite. The one that we discovered this morning was amazing. Huge selection of food and the roti was the best so far.
