Day 8: Xuhai - Kenting
The last day of our cycling trip! It does feel quite bittersweet because on one hand I’m glad that we reached our final destination but on the other hand it feels like the vacation is coming to an end. Kenting is located in Taiwan’s most southern tip, it is a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. Many people come here for the weekend or on holiday. The journey south from Xuhai is a full coastal route and a relatively easy one compared to route 199 Jia and the 197.
Along the way we passed by several military facilities, which some are still active and most are not. These buildings ranges from old barracks, bunkers, communication base to watchtowers wide spread across the coast.
Overall, I feel that the route for our cycling trip was well chosen and balanced. We get to enjoy the scenic route up in the mountains for about half of the journey and the coastal route for the rest of the journey. I think it is a good combination and mother nature has been very kind to us. The trip to Kenting we experienced some slight drizzle and rain, but nothing a light windbreaker can’t handle. We didn’t get soaked or anything like that and the rain didn’t last very long at all.
We arrived at a scenic view point to stop, not long after that the road was blocked by a herd of mountain goats running on the streets. They seem to be going somewhere in a hurry. There were about 15-20 goats covering the road and traversing downhill pass the scenic point. Like us many of the visitors took out there cellphones and cameras to take pictures and videos of the goats passing by. At this scenic point there is this huge rock that has been carved naturally by the wind through out the years and it overlooks the whole coast side. This place seems to be a very popular place for visitors because there were many people who stopped by including some tour bus and also people shooting their wedding photographs at the time we stopped there. The wind was quite strong up there and it had no problem in toppling our bikes over the side.
Southernmost Point Marker
Before going reaching Kenting, we took a detour towards the southern most point of Taiwan. This is essentially the southern most tip of Taiwan and apparently quite popular amongst tourists. There is a big point marker at this space signifying the most southern point of Taiwan.
Not long after we got there, a swarm of tourist flooded the area. Mind you, the platform and resting area is not very spacious, so we decided to leave before getting trapped in by the foot traffic headed our way. A lot of people who noticed the swarm of people headed their way also left. We got to take a few pictures and sat down to enjoy the view for a little before we left.
We arrived at Kenting around 4:30pm in the afternoon and checked in to our airbnb location. The outside decoration and paint scheme made it seem a little like Santorini with the white and blue theme. I notice a lot of people were on some type of electrical scooters. There are many foreigners and tourist spread out across the city. Business is not bad since it is technically slow season (winter) but the temperature really does not feel like winter at all. It is a little more windy compared to the previous cities but I wouldn’t consider it cold at all. I imagine summer would be really hot here.
Coming to the end of our trip we spend the remainder of our time in Kenting mostly by foot and walk around to check out local vendors and booths for food and drinks. They also have various handcrafted souvenir shops. We wandered around the streets to check out the market, grab some food, drinks and hang out for a little bit and do a mini celebration to celebrate the trip. Then we took a brief ride into Kenting National Park on our bicycle to kill some time and explore for a little bit.
A friend of a friend have edited some of the video footage for us: https://vimeo.com/178465654
More Photos (click to enlarge):
