My world walk blog - Taiwan #5

My world walk blog - Taiwan  #5

With a population of 2.8 million Taichung certainly tested my patience as I could do pretty little pavement walking. With so many scooters and small motorcycles parked in random clusters blocking my way, I was routinely forced to walk on the road. Parking violations don't seem to be taken seriously either as cars are also parked with little regard for pedestrians. I often wonder how the disabled and especially the blind survive in these places. It can be a scary walking experience when silent electric bikes whizz past me at high speed and often with less than a metre to spare as I walk on pavements.

 In the end, once I battled my way out of Taiwan's second city the latter part of that 23-kilometre stroll was pretty enjoyable. Having managed to eventually get a Taiwan sim card I was back to my preferred method of navigation. With mobile data secured I just turned on Google Maps in the GPS mode and set my destination for a point in the south of the island. That way should I choose I don't even have to look at my map as I can simply follow the voice commands, turn left or right etc. This is particularly helpful when raining as its a bit difficult to keep a phone completely dry, even in a zip-lock bag.  Occasionally on a whim, I may alter my route as I did that day. I walked along a highway with little shelter. The low winter sun was intense. When I came to a junction I consulted my map and instead of continuing on the unsheltered highway I switched to another highway which had decent tree shade. Eventually, that took me down some country lanes and onto minor roads. I walked through a couple of villages and came to a trailhead. Now that I'm walking with a backpack and not pushing Karma walking trails is a joy. I followed a dried out river bed for about a kilometre and noticed my GPS bearing was drifting away from the trail I was actually on. With dusk rapidly approaching and having only one small bottle of water I decided to resist the temptation of pitching my tent as it wouldn't be much fun camping without much food and so little water. Instead, I retreated and walked north hoping to find my way cross country and onto an incomplete trail which had a gap from where I stood. I walked along a dried out water drain until I came to a metal staircase. This led to the short trail I was looking for. It was perhaps five hundred metres long and led me to a busy main road #139. I was just a little south-east of Hugang. On I marched and at the end of the trail, I came to a compound with several offices and workshops. A few maintenance men were working on electrical repairs. One of them a man called Min Ji Lim (MJ Lim) spoke decent English and after a short chat with him and his friend Chun Ming Yang I discovered the place was actually the Changhua City dump. Taking him up on his offer of water we walked over to the office compound. After further chatting, we were soon Facebook friends. Then a delicious microwave pork, veg and savoury rice dinner was cooked for me. And I had a place to sleep on the office floor! For that, I had to promise that I wouldn't depart before 8 am as Min Ji Lim is going to bring me some breakfast from his mother restaurant. Depart before 8 am, who me? I'm such a slow morning person!