Bike & Beyond Formosa 900 Taiwan 2015

Another day in Tapei has flown by. Do you know these days when you think you haven't done a lot but don't know where time has gone? I call these the days you made most of it and I am in my holidays. Finally!

This morning we spent at Xingtian Temple and followed a ceremony. Quite interesting! Actually it's been a day with a lot of interesting facts and figures. On the way to the temple I realised we were walking on the streets, cars and scooters passing by and it felt like a bit like living in an oversized anthill. Some streets just don't have pavements. But it looks like all participants of traffic can peacefully live together in Taipei.

Ceremony at Xingtian Temple


Xingtian Temple

Another must see in Taipei is the Chiang Kai-Chek Memorial Hall. To get there the easiest way is to take te underground. The train system in Taipei is modern, fast, on-time and cheap! Getting around for around 50 Cent is nothing to complain about. It's forbidden to eat or drink in the stations and on the trains and its clean. Really clean!

Underground train map Taipei

From the station to the memorial its only a puddle jump to reach a haven of tranquility in the middle of the city. A beautiful place!

Theater at Chiang Kai-Chek Memorial Hall

Gate at Chiang Kai-Chek Memorial Hall

Chiang Kai-Chek Memorial Hall

We got lucky to see the change of guards at the memorial hall. Watch the video. It's not taken in slo-mo, this is original! :)

Change of guards at Chiang Kai-Chek Memorial Hall

Back at the hotel our pick-up service to get us to the #Formosa900 briefing was a standard Mercedes Sprinter from the outside but inside we got surprised with luxury leather seats. We get treated very welll before we have to start using our own muscles to travel around Taiwan tomorrow morning :)

Pure Luxury!

At the briefing of our bike trip we met all the other bikers of the group. A total size of 35 people from all around the world, including the US, Scotland, Singapore, China, Malaysia and of course the three Germans Moni, Vanessa and myself.

Frank, our tour leader explained in detail that our first challenge will be already on our first day as we need to cross the mountains to get to the east side of Taiwan. Gear on and lets get ready to bike!

Briefing

Back at the hotel there we decided to go for dinner before having an early night. The street life in Taiwan is fascinating, not only because of the small shops everywhere but also for daily things like the post service, litter service (they come around, playing music and people swarm to the place of the litter truck and start to trash and recycle on the street. This was the time I realized they don't have any public trash bins. Pretty weird, especially you get rubbish everywhere, even when you buy a tea it comes in a plastic bag. #ErlebeTaiwan