Cycling in the Countryside to the Beach

My Taiwan host stays on a farm that's not very far from the beach. So this morning, while he was away on an appointment, he got his younger brother to bring us cycling. Before that, he decided to let us try riding his scooter. According to him, every taiwanese knows how to ride a scooter from a very young age so it shouldn't be difficult for us to learn... he couldn't be more wrong. lol.

So, after a few near death moments... (joking...) we decided to go cycling instead. It was really enjoyable cycling through the farmlands towards the beach. The terrain was flat and there were very few cars. I was riding an old mountain bike. How I wish I had my Gary Fisher with me.

Saw some duck farms. The duck pools were always paired with a pool breeding shellfish (like mollusks). Reason being, the dirty shitty water produced by the ducks', uh, shit... made excellent food for the mollusks which ultimately made excellent dishes for us humans. Yucks.

It's the season for watermelons and there were a few fields still waiting to be harvested. Learnt about distinguishing between red-meat watermelons and yellow-meat ones from my host's brother (the former having a lighter skin, like the one in the pic, and the latter being usually darker skinned with the typical watermelon stripes.

The experience of cycling along the breakwater and paths at the beach was even more memorable! Here's the concrete path constructed by the fishery owners so they can drive out to inspect the pools and of course, harvest them when ready. This breakwater extended easily more than 100m from the shore!

I don't think I'll ever have the experience of cycling 'on water' again. It was quite exciting. Some spots were covered with sand, making it really hard to cross and some spots which were still concrete had a layer of moss on it, making it very slippery. All said, it was still a very memorable experience.

Here's a small fisherman's hut Standing near the end of the concrete track.

I couldn't resist a pic at the top of the ladder.

My colleague and our host's brother, digging for tiny crabs in the sand.

We were seriously thinking about cycling all the way to the wind powered generators you should be able to see in the middle of the pic. Unfortunately, we only realised later that there was no path leading there. From our conrete path, it was just sand rocks. So we had to give up on our idea.

On the way back, my biked slipped at one of sections of the concrete path which was under some water. While I only had some minor bruises and scratched, my dear camera died. What you see above is the smashed-up UV filter. Unfortunately, my main camera is also dead for now.. can't see to get it to power up. Looks like it might be time to get a new DSLR.... Heh.