Summer Holiday

My 1st visit down South Taiwan.

1s stop - Dive Green Island.
Went with Eddie from Green Island Adventures. He's a nice jolly guy, met me at Taichong's HSR station, jump into his van and he starts to drive for Taitung. Some 8 hours later, we jump onto a ferry and then we're on Green Island and the diving starts!

The dive gang consists of 1 dive instructor - Curtis from Canada. 2 women Canadians who were there to relax by the beach; Isau, a Japanese avid diver (who dives a lot with Eddie); Marko, an Estonian who's new to Taiwan (2 weeks old here!) and Nancy who's Taiwanese but grew up in California.

Highlights of the dive - banded coral snakes. I saw 3 over 5 dives in 2 days. Handfeeding a school of batfish, and in particular the different types of corals made the dives different. Water vis was really good and the blue skies and the lack of any other divers made it nice. I really liked our 2nd day local Dive Master,
Vero Chiang. If I go back, definitely dive with her.

2nd stop - chilling in Kenting
Eddie was nice enough to drop us off at Fangliao where we jumped onto a bus and headed straight into Kenting. We had chosen a local homestay which was pretty nice and reasonably priced. But they were grumpy and not very helpful. I would recommend staying at either the Howard Hotel or the Ok Hill Lodge rather - not very much pricier but more accessible to the main Kenting stretch so you can walk or scooter easily.

As it turns out, the weather was a blazing 35degrees C. And we'd already spent 2 days in the sun at Green Island. CY as it turns out, doesn't do very well in the heat - he's an AC guy. We scootered about for 1 day and the man wanted AC bad. So we headed for the city, Gaoshiong.

Walking down to the tip of Taiwan - Erluanbi in Kenting



Day 4 - GaoShiong City
We picked this out of the guidebook as we hadn't planned on Gaoshiong - Sanduo Hotel. Fortunately it was nice and clean and right in the heart of the city. Back to civilisation and taxis. We explored a little - the old British Consulate at Takao, on top of a hill. Front facing into the Taiwan straits and the back faces into the harbour - ah the Brits certainly knew to pick their locations. There's an old Northern gates still standing at the bottom of the Takao Hill. We visited the Love River area, viewed the tallest building 85 Sky Tower there, walked about. Very nice - very much more liveable than Taipei. Nicer, quieter, greener, breezier. Ate a very nice western meal. Checked out the nearby Holy Rosary Cathedral. Drank coffee at cafes... it was nice.

Back to Taipei
Back in Taipei, we drank coffee in cafes, visited the Grand Palace museum at leisure, ate more good food, had some excellent massages. Then CY returned home and I returned to some 300+ backlog emails.