November 13, 2025

Time to wrap up yet another stay, this occasion definitely one of the more stressful departures, considering that the typhoon is lingering around the island and continuing to make an unsavory mark on the place. The rain has been on and off during the morning, but the lack of heavy wind has been consistent, which is important, given that one of my biggest fears is my umbrella getting destroyed. Normally, I can juggle the umbrella in heavy wind to make sure the canopy doesn’t get ripped open, but not when I have two heavy pack draped over my body.

Of course, I overbought food, which means I have to eat at least most of it; on the positive side, I don’t know what eating opportunities will be available later on in the day, but it isn’t exactly pleasant to shovel this much food into you. The young women working at the bed and breakfast would probably just as soon see me go; it has hardly been a pleasant experience being here, certainly considering trying to keep a straight face while tourists try to experience a meaningful stay in the midst of a violent typhoon.

The important part of the trip to Fulong is making sure I don’t miss the 856 bus, as there are only three that run every day. While the rain is quite light when I leave the bed and breakfast, it grows in intensity as I approach the main road. The tourists are hardly out in force, but then Jiufen is only so interesting, nothing more than a collection of retail establishments selling knickknacks and sweets to tourists, with a few observation points.

Visibility of the terrain is limited, thanks to the ubiquitous haze and rain; my fear of missing the bus is somewhat misguided, given how quickly I get to the main road. At least the bus stop has a generous canopy, allowing me to sit through the almost 45 minute wait; closer to the bus’s arrival time, I gather my packs and peer over the ledge at the lower road, eager to get a glance of the bus as it approaches. A constant stream of people disembarks from the ongoing buses that ply this road, mostly citizens of neighboring countries, all very friendly, although it isn’t hard to see that they are trying to make the best of the difficult weather.

Past Jinguashi, the road descends dramatically, the steep, hilly environment relentlessly green until we reach the small settlement along the coast, and as the road runs along the waterfront, the enormity and violence of the surf is breathtaking, a succession of steep rollers whose foaming crests hurtle towards shore and explode with a fury, the intensity of the storm surge summarily rationalizing the concrete barriers that abound along the coastline. Equally dramatic, the steep cliffs that extend to Cape Bitou and beyond toward Blue Bay park. There is little traffic along this coast, other than a succession of commercial transport trucks, possibly because the coastal route may be relatively unobstructed by traffic bottlenecks and free of changes in elevation.

A testimony to the remoteness of the area, there are only a few passengers on the bus, a handful of locals and three foreigners, myself and the young German couple I saw yesterday in Jinguashi. The German seeing the world with his long dreadlocks in tow says it all … In the sparse settlements en route to Fulong, I see dive shops and surf board rentals, which would suggest that in some other season, this area would be a destination for said recreational sports. Now, evidently not, although the current weather is hardly typical of the season.

I am deposited around the corner from the train station in Fulong, the hostel I am to stay at conveniently next to the train station, which means I won’t have too walk far when I leave. I will only be staying in Fulong two days, but the onward journey will be lengthy, as I am traveling all the way to Hualien. I am hoping I can take the train the entire journey.

In the interim, I find the hostel in somewhat dubious circumstances, the entrance at the top of a flight of narrow stairs, but no one answers the message I relay on WhatsApp. When I try the door handle, someone opens it from inside, the young cleaning woman, originally from Surabaya, Indonesia. Yes, I can leave my things here and check in later … so I should make the most of the day while I can.

While the sky hasn’t cleared, it isn’t raining, and I should try and take in the beach that is the prime attraction of Fulong. Except when I find my way through the shuttered tourism complex, the tourist information centre and shops selling souvenirs are bereft of life. The entire waterfront is dominated by the luxurious Fullon Hotel, which seems completely out of place in such a small town, but its property effectively blocks access to the beach, which doesn’t run along the shoreline, but extends along a lengthy spit of land that can only be access by crossing a bridge. Access is possibly blocked due to the stormy weather, although it seems that if access were permitted, it would only be subject to the payment of an admission fee, which from what I saw online is ridiculously high.

I view the sandy spit from the distance, but am thinking that perhaps I could access the beach by another means, and that would be by following the paths in the adjoining park to the bridge that crosses over to the promontory. But that becomes complicated by the fact that the labyrinthine paths are misrepresented on the Google Map, so that I have to revert to sleuthing to determine how I can at least come close to the bridge.

The padanus-lined paved trails look like they have been abandoned, with virtually no sign of human life. One path reaches a wooden boardwalk that leads to a gazebo, the trail descending to a boardwalk along the side of the estuary, the bridge visible in the distance, but the boardwalk eventually reaches a grassy meridian that culminates in a kayaking clubhouse, quite large in size, judging by the size of the facilities — but there is no way of continuing on to the bridge.

I return into the dense, subtropical brush, the debris-strewn trails weaving to the proximity of the bridge, but never actually reaching the bridge. Even better, there are repeated ‘No Entry’ signs intended to ward the curious from proceeding; whatever the attraction of this area may have been in the past, it certainly is not available now. The bridge doesn’t just provide access to the beach that runs along the promontory, it also is part of the bike route that is apparently one of the major attractions of the area.

The trail weaves into what appears to be an enormous camping enclave, including camping plots, administrative buildings, sites for recreational activities, all set throughout the forest enclave that occupies a large swath of the land to the west of Fulong. I hear shouting from a distance, and walking towards the source of the noise, I see a group of youth, mostly young women, shrouded in yellow raincoats, one by one herded onto a zipline, which they ride shrieking across a clearing, landing on a mound with varying ability.

Further along, several groups of youth are engaged in a team exercise involving throwing a ball, where two individuals are encases in giant, inflatable bubbles, the object of the game possibly being one team trying to hit the person of the opposing team wearing the protective bubble while the rest of the team shields them.

It is getting late, the light falling, and the route to the bridge is still considerable, requiring walking through the campground to an entrance from the main road close to the train station, then walking all the way back. No, it’s not going to happen today. And tomorrow, I would like to take the train to towns to the north of Fulong and discover their attractions, weather permitting.

I return to the area of the train station, climb the steps of the hostel, enter the building easily enough, but am not able to enter into the room that I have been assigned. The touchpads that lock the main door as well as the room doors are activated by holding the palm of your hand over the pad, then entering the security code when the pad lights up. The touchpad for the main door functions, but not the one of the room I have been assigned.

I try repeatedly, but the process simply doesn’t function. I wait almost half an hour for the hostel to respond to my WhatsApp messages, then am told you have to press your palm against the touchpad (rather than hovering it over the pad). That doesn’t work, either, until I realize that the pad does activate momentarily, but then shuts down again when you don’t quickly move your hand away.

The hostel does not have a kitchen where you can prepare food, so it will mean eating out. There are a few basic eateries at the entrance to the train station, although according to the map, there are apparently quite a few restaurants scattered through the streets running to the east. In theory, anyway: it is barely after dinnertime, the eateries by the train station are shuttered, and as I wander through the small town, I see that the restaurants shown on the map don’t exist or are shuttered.

I continue walking along the highway, a continuous cordon of commercial transports roaring by me, then proceed along the narrow street leading through the collection of atmospherically-lit houses to what I take to be the town core, where I find a Taoist temple facing a broad plaza, below which is a beach and roaring surf, the shoreline of the distant coast illuminated with twinkling lights.

While the nocturnal character and languid evening air is rich in charm, there is virtually nowhere to go out here, the establishments on the map nothing more than a chimera. A few doors from the temple, one restaurant is evidently open, what with the brightly-lit interior. I enter gingerly, at first ignored by the family glued to the television, but then the wiry matriarch comes to my rescue, walking me through the extensive menu of seafood.

I am not sure what to make of their offering, and even with the aid of the translation app our communication is somewhat impeded, but at this point am just happy to eat whatever she prepares. And the choice doesn’t disappoint, three plates appearing before me, laden with clams stewed in a flavourful soy broth with finely chopped greens and Thai basil, the standard fried rice mixed with egg and finely diced vegetables, and a plate of stewed julienned bamboo shoots with chopped greens and red cayenne. The dinner is excellent, somewhat lavish for what I had in mind, and certainly far more expensive than what I would normally consider budgetarily, although the NT$490 (CAD $24) amounts to what you would have paid back home in the 1980s.

I return through the desolate but beautifully illuminated alleys of this tiny coastal burg, enveloped in the caress of the damp, warm air, the ground wet, the surf roaring the distance, the narrow paved paths flanked by dense copses of padanus, with no trace of rain for the remainder of the evening. At the hostel, I find the owner waiting for me as well as two young local men engrossed in conversation at one of the tables. I had misunderstood when the owner was to come to collect the payment for my stay, but he hasn’t been waiting long, and is quite congenial. He is enthralled by the fact that I ate in a restaurant whose owners he is related to, although I imagine most people here are related in some fashion as the town is so small.

What I am not impressed by is that his daughter made a point of putting all three of us in the same room, while leaving the other rooms empty, an approach that leaves me even less enamored by the hostel experience. Every additional person in the room means less privacy, and most importantly, less chance of being able to sleep at night, given the likelihood of someone snoring loudly. Not that I haven’t commandeered as much of the limited space in the room for my personal belongings …

This will unfortunately not be the last hostel I will be staying in on my trip, as hotels in Taiwan are quite expensive, God knows why, given the general state of disrepair and bad weather. The weather is supposed to be very good in November, but it has been largely bad, never mind the typhoon that is currently passing through. I can’t believe what the hotels in this town are charging — they are largely sitting empty — and there is nothing to do here anyway …