Articles by Doug Nienhuis
I am a Canadian, and I am currently traveling through Asia with a touring bicycle. These are stories and pictures from my trip.
Hsinchu County Scooter Trip 003 – Five Finger Mountain
Monday, February 28, 2011
12:30 p.m.
Hsinchu County, Taiwan
I’m on the road and slowly making my way back to Taipei. I stopped at the Lion’s Head Mountain Visitor Information Center, and here I found a lovely outdoor coffee shop. I have a table in the shade next to a fish pond. A cool breeze is blowing past and pleasant music is playing. I had had some thoughts …
Hsinchu County Scooter Trip 002 – Neiwan Day 2
Sunday February 27 2011
8:00 a.m. Neiwan, Taiwan
I’m back at the same little restaurant in Neiwan as yesterday. It’s not a perfect spot, but it has two key things going for it: it’s open and it serves coffee. As far as I can tell, it is the only place open in the entire town. To be honest, I don’t think it is open for business in …
Hsinchu County Scooter Trip 001 – Neiwan
Saturday February 26, 2011
8:25 a.m. Neiwan, Taiwan
The stage for this little trip in Taiwan will be pretty difficult to set, as there are very few places like this little town anywhere in the world. I guess you could call it a tourist town. At one time, Taiwan was a Japanese colony, and the Japanese built a number of narrow-gauge railways to serve mining and forestry …
North Cross-Island Highway 009 – Epilogue
Wednesday February 9, 2011
Taipei – Epilogue
I’ve been back in Taipei for a couple of days already. I got back on Monday evening and I went to work on Tuesday. Today is my second day of work, and it isn’t very exciting. As I expected, it felt very strange to arrive back in Taipei after my 8 days off. My apartment felt very small and dark …
North Cross-Island Highway 008 – Pingling and the Indy 500
Monday February 7, 2011
8:30 a.m. Pingling
Welcome to the Indy 500. Pingling is a small and traditional tea-growing village in the cool mountains south of Taipei. It is on twisty route 9, and the local motorcycle racing enthusiasts have claimed it for their own. That the police haven’t clamped down on these guys racing at unbelievably high speeds is typical of Taiwan. One pretty much never …
North Cross-Island Highway 007 – HsingHsing
Sunday February 6, 2011
8:00 a.m. Still in Baling
My goal for yesterday was to drive my scooter into the mountains southwest of Baling. When I drove to Upper baling, I could look across the valley and see other mountain roads climbing and climbing higher into those mountains. It was impossible to tell from my maps where those roads went or what was over there, but that …
North Cross-Island Highway 006 – Lalashan and the Giant Trees
Saturday February 5, 2011
7:50 a.m
I’m back at my favorite spot in Baling and about to have what has become my traditional café latte. They make a very good cup of café latte here. It’s got lots of coffee flavor and is very hot.
I haven’t written very much the last couple of days despite a lot happening. That’s because it has been so cold both inside …
North Cross-Island Highway 005 – Meeting Travellers
Friday February 4, 2011
8:00 a.m. Having a coffee in Baling
I had a very interesting evening in Baling because of all the people I met. The first was a Taiwanese man in his forties named Carlson. He sat down in this restaurant where all the girls had asked me to sign their magazine. He looked over at me and asked if I was traveling alone, too. …