Kaohsiung to Yujin

Where the f*** is Yujin, you wonder. It's damn ulu, and ulu is a synonym for siong. I climbed many Mount Fabers on my way here. 8% gradient, I think. And 8% is not the steepest. Tomorrow, my route will take me to a place that will bring me 3000ft up and up an 18% grade. WTF, 18%? Gotta walk already. Sian...





The bike, fully loaded.


The route was truly tiring. I started at 6, did 87km and reached Yujin at around 1.30pm. So that's 7.5 hours, and I averaged a speed of 14 or so. That's super slow, but if you'd ask me, I can't go any faster. The load, mountains and other shit truly take a toll.

The Taiwanese answer to Cristo Redentor

On the way I saw some truly beautiful sights. Miles of empty land, a big Buddha perched on a hill, visible from kilometres away and other nice stuff.

My route took me from Kaohsiung to Cishan, then to Meinong and Neimen then to Yujin. All these places are damn ulu. It got uluer and uluer as I got nearer to Neihu and it got more and more Hokkien as well. Walau eh...


Horlan to road works... sian.


I hor lanned somewhere in Neimen which caused me to go up an unnecessary mountain, and then ride another extra 10-15km more. The best thing was that I lost my way and didn't realise it until I hit the peak. Well, no going back, since the downhill had to be enjoyed. But immediately after the summit, there were road works. No roads - only gravel. On the way down, the heavy machinery was spewing out sand and I had to pass by there.

The final stretch was the most agonising. I kept seeing signs that say Yujin, Yujin, Yujin. It was 12km away when I first saw the sign, but these 12km felt like doing 40km on the Coastal route. It was truly Mount Faber again and again. By the time I reached Yujin, I totally felt so shagged I went directly to the police station to find directions to a hostel.

500TWD and I got a room. The room didn't have WiFi, which was screwy. What's worse was that when I took my computer out, the hard drive didn't work. That truly put my in a truly difficult spot as I had to find a cybercafe (wang ka)... which is where I am typing this now. This also means that all the photos of Kaohsiung are lost.

Sian man...