Biker Gang Tour

A few weekends ago Matthew and I joined a small group of bikers and went cruising down south. We were the most pathetic bikers of the group. It's mostly because we have the most gutless bike. We own a 2010 150cc Hartford (a Taiwanese bike, built in Taichung). It can barely do 105km/hour, and the fastest speed we seem to get out of it with me as a passenger is about 90-95km/hour (and that's not going uphill).

There were two other foreigners in the group, one who lives in town, Lehi, (a fellow Canadian who used to have my job, but now owns a school) and who owns a massive motorcyle that can go a couple hundred kilometers per hour. There were some Taiwanese guys, about three others with their girlfriends, and they all have the same bike as Lehi. During our little tour, that group of bikers took the highways, but Matthew and I, and the other foreigner, named Mark (from England), took the small back roads. The highways in Taiwan are restricted to cars and motorcycles above 550cc. Mark own a scooter, but even so, he had suped his scooter out, so it can easily do 120km/h and it kicks our motorcycle's ass every time. (Yes, it seems a bit silly but people do that here. There are more scooters than anything, and mostly when you see a suped up scooter, it belong to some teenagers; they can get their license at 18 years of age).

It's always a bit weird when going anywhere with a group of people; it's hard to all agree on things. During the entire ride down and back, we were with Mark and took the smaller back roads. Even though he has a suped up scooter, it still isn't allowed on the highways. They have a system that makes it easy to identify the motorcycles that are allowed on highways from the ones that aren't. All cars are allowed on the highways, and they will all have a white license plate. The scooters and motorcycles, however, are not. Most scooters and our motorcycle has a white license plate, but we are excluded from using the highways. If the motorcycle/scooter has a red license plate, it means that it is above the 550cc mark, and therefore, is allowed to drive on the highways. This year they have introduced something new. There is a yellow license plate for two wheeled vehicles (scooters & motorcycles). They are given to anything above 250cc but below 550cc. This is where is gets a bit tricky. These yellow plate vehicles are allowed on only some of the highways as not all the Taiwanese cities have recognized them in their laws yet. This new plate was only introduce earlier this year, so I am sure it will take some time for the adjustment. You may also see green license plates, but those are old and have been phased out, but not everyone has gotten rid or changed them on their scooters, so you still see them from time to time. I am unsure what the green ones represents. Like I said, tricky.

 Lehi and the group of three Taiwanese guys all have the exact same motorcycle, just with different paint jobs.

 

You can see the red license plate.

 

The scooter on the left belongs to Mark, and you can see the back end of our motorcycle. We're pretty puny compared to those giants over there on the right.
 
Taking the highways saves an enormous amount of time, and I can't say that I actually prefer taking the regular roads; it's not like you get a better view than the highways. The highways here are pretty state of the art. They are all way above ground, so it's like you're driving in air. However, they do have a ton of tolls, which gets to be pretty annoying so I guess that is one complaint, but as a motorcyclist I don't have to deal with them.

We drove all the way down to Chiayi County, along the coast. It was beautiful. Sometimes you forget how fantastic looking at the blue sky and lush green trees can be. There isn't anything better than seeing those scenes while on a motorcycle; the wind in your face, the smell of nature. It's not the same with the windows rolled down in a car; you can't get the feeling of being part of it all while sitting in a car; you have barriers around you. I have seen a lot of windmills in Taiwan; Matthew and I have spotted them on our drive to Taichung, north from where we live, and on this particular drive. Driving past them I realized how small I am and wondered what kind of a feat it would be the install one.

We saw strange wooden posts in the sea down in Chiayi, and it turns out they were oyster farms. Apparently, the farmers walk along the scaffolds and just pick up the nets and check whether they caught any oysters or not; or wehter they are ready for harvesting. No one seemed to know exactly how it all works, so I will be forced to do some research. I'm not sure how effective the whole process is, but there were lots of them there, and oysters are super popular all over Taiwan. You can buy them everywhere!

After this we all headed to a restaurant nearby and had some lunch. We were a pretty big group and got our own private room in the restaurant. We let the others order and just tried everything. They brought the food to the table and placed it on a huge lazy susan (it was about as big as the table itself) and everything is communal. As you can imagine, there were plenty of oyster dishes that day. After lunch we split up from the group of Taiwanese bikers, and us foreigners all headed to some other town where they have huge celebrations every Sunday. I thought is was a little bit ridiculous. The Taiwanese absolutely love their firecrackers and fireworks. I think it's stupid actually. They love them so much they will lightup fireworks in broad daylight, even though you can barely see them. I am not one for traditions as I mostly think they are ridiculous, especially when we have learned that they don't serve a real purpose and happen to be bad for the environment (maybe I like science too much). The Taiwanese aren't actually different from the Chinese, their religion and traditional practices are the same, and I just think it makes no sense. I do realized that I am biased, having no religion and not believing in any kind of afterlife, I do not feel the need to pray or to participate in any actions related to these practices. If a relative dies, you are supposed to leave food at their graves (or in the case of praying to a god at a temple), and you are also supposed to burn this fake paper money, so that the specific god or your relative will have money to spend in heaven. The temples smell horrible most of the time as so much paper is being burned daily. These Sunday celebrations are no different. They lay our firecrackers on the ground and just light them. There aren't any barricades or anything like that; it's just, light them wherever you want, aiming them whichever direction you want. We didn't spend much time there. It's just a place crowded with people and it's loud and more abnoxious than interesting.We all escaped the noise and heat to visit a nearby Temple in a garden.

Even though the temple was not very far from all the chaos, it was very peaceful and serene. It wasn't busy at all, but that might have been because you needed to make a donation in order to enter, but I can certainly say it was worth it.

The smoke you see is from all the firecrackers that were being lit. This is the view from the temple built on top of a man-made cliff.

 I like architecture and have this weird obsession with staircases, vaulted ceilings, and hallways.

The temple is now used more or less as a museum; the Cultural and Historical Museum of Nankunshen Daitein Temple. It had quite a collection of seashells, and objects made from seashells.

It was a hot sunny day; Lehi is a pretty big guy and Mark had gotten some pretty serious sunburns. So we decided to relax in some shade and recouperate for a bit. Matthew himself burns quite easily, and even though he re-applied sunscreen multiple times that day, you couldn't tell. He was pretty red; it peeled, but it was nothing compared to Mark. Perhaps I can be thankful for my mixed heritage as I don't burn easily; or maybe it's because of my grotesque fear of skin cancer and looking like leather face by the time I'm 35 that I have a habitual nature to lather on sunscreen like it's the essence that gives me life. Either way I don't think it matters, as long as I don't have to go through that kind of agony.

We spent about an hour or so there, just chatting and learning lots about Taiwan from two foreigners' perspectives; they have both been here fore quite some time (married wit children). It was now pretty much mid-afternoon, so we decided we should start heading back. We walked down the paved path flanked by fresh blooming flowers on either side of the white painted wooden fence, until we came to a water wheel; we stopped there for a brief time as Lehi's youngest, Jacob, was getting tired. Here I felt a bit out of place while the three men discussed their highschool sweethearts. One mentioned how he had recently seen her, and how fat she has gotten, and how many kids she had, each with a different father. All the men are about the same age, and since there is a rather big gap between myself and them; I didn't have any stories like that to share. I did hope however, that I would not become like one of their stories because it just sounds depressing; and yes, I am so vain and shallow that I do not want to get fat either.

When we got back down to our bikes, most people were leaving the celebrations. It had been a long day in the sun, and driving all over the place on a motorcycle is exhausting. We were taking our time getting back home, but Lehi had to break away from the group as his son was falling asleep. Obviously that is a bit problematic on a motorcycle, so they took the highway and sped home. By the time we got home, darkness was just beginning to befall us. Matthew and I went out for a simple but yummy meal and headed home for a great night's sleep.