Running a full lap around sun moon lake
Today I went to the number one tourist attraction in all of Taiwan, its so amazing Japan made Pokemon games about it, the world renowned sun moon lake.
The only problem was, it was raining, and I wanted to run a lap of the lake, a mere 33km, or basically, more than 3/4 of a marathon. This following my huge day yesterday.
Transport to the lake was easy to come by, buses leave every 20 minutes for the grand sum of $2 for a 45 minute trip. We were in cloud most of the way.
Once I got off the bus, it was a brief moment of not pouring with rain, I was excited and set off! Full tilt, 33km to go. It started to rain soon after and basically did not stop.
So I got very wet even with my raincoat on, I saw only one other runner, and he was seriously kitted out in a wetsuit. I also saw zero cyclists.
My $2 raincoat is unfortunately a little too small, with the hood on and jogging, it pulls on the top of my head, so I was running a long like a hunch back.
Despite my hunchback stance, the view was still excellent, and I got to experience, fog, dense fog, rain, heavy rain, mist, mist and fog together, and a brief period of almost not raining.
The path is probably 1/2 actual path for bikes and walkers/runner. I read numerous reports that the path goes all the way around the lake and you can rent a bike and ride the whole way around in a day. This is not entirely true.
First of all, I will humble brag again, I ran the whole damn way around, 33km. Well I ran at least 3/4 of the way anyway. Secondly, half the time you have to run on the road with tour buses. So many tour buses.
So anyone that tells you they rode around the beautiful bike path of sun moon lake and made it the whole way around, ask them if theres a path the whole way, if they say yes, you know they are lying, they rode a few km from the information booth at the main port and turned back.
Despite the rain, and the frustratingly dangerous requirement to run on the road in the fog and rain, I had a fantastic day. Both my days in Puli have been epic adventures, easily the best part of my trip.
I am back to Taipei tomorrow, so getting there will be mostly photos of trains and buses again, a rest day for me, 110,000 steps in 2 days and running 3/4 of a marathon.
The weather for my 4 nights in Taipei is supposed to be fine, so there will be more adventures.
Setting out from Puli, it was wet, and in places, cloud was on the ground. More cloud to come.
I was interested in the archaic Puli bus station, which shines a blue light on the bus thats arriving. Clever, no need for LED signs here.
My first view of the lake. Nice still water for fog reflections.
A bit more lake, thats not the lake, thats a side bit of lake, an inlet perhaps, if I only had to run around that much lake the day would be over soon.
Nice clouds up the valley. Happy with this photo.
My first view of part of the entire lake. It wont all fit in frame. Now it looks like a 33km effort is required.
The first 1/3 of the trip was frustrating as it kept looping in and out of inlets, I didnt seem to be making much progress on the map.
There are lots of spots for buses to drop people off to buy stuff. Some places like this one, look like a prison.
It then became really foggy. I heard all kinds of yelling and screaming ahead. I seriously though a boat had sunk. No, just a heap of people playing canoe polo in the fog.
I tried to capture how dense the fog was. My camera sees through fog better than the human eye.
Its not all flat smooth paths and roads. At times you have to climb up quite a long way, or take switch back roads up a cliff.
I remember reading reports by people who hired bikes complaining that the entire journey is up hill, around a lake, finishing where you started.
Good fog pic, with the very blue water able to be seen. The water is such a rich blue color, it would look a lot more blue if there was sun, which there was not. So today was neither sun or moon lake.
I didnt go through the tunnel, theres a path up and around it for cyclists and me. I think the tunnel is a shortcut though, a dry shortcut.
First stop, grandmas boiled eggs. Literally just a huge line of people waiting to buy a boiled egg.
Boats come across to here from where I started. There is a big pagoda up the hill. I could not see it in the fog. I thought it was a bit too foggy for boats to even operate at this point.
There are lots and lots of temples around the lake. But I was soaking wet and enjoying my running, so I did not stop at this one.
Thats the lake down there, past all the palm trees.
The fog cleared every now and then, and allowed for photos of blue water such as this one.
Somehow my camera has invented fake sun for this photo. This is the largest town around the far side of the lake, where I replenished my fluid supply.
Just past the town is a ropeway station that goes up a big hill to... wait for it, a temple. Nice blossoms.
Ropeway cars disappearing into fog. No Asian tourist paradise is complete without a ropeway.
I went into the station for food, and ended up with a muffin, the line for real food was too long, I had no time. But it was dry and I was able to dry my soaking wet camera.
Ropeway restaurant area. They were serving a really delicious looking beef stew.
No stew for me, more fog. Got to keep moving.
I was now confused which way that ropeway goes, its very high above my head! An earthquake right now would make their day exciting.
Nice photo showing blue water, look how far past the town I have gone already. I was flying around the course.
I think from here I can glance the finishing line, still about 5km away.
Now confident I was going to make it around, in fact if anything it was easier than I expected, I had time to quickly look at this temple, and dry my camera again.
View from temple.
I didnt see anyone else taking photos, but since I already looked like a wet lunatic with a bright red face and a dripping wet $2 rain coat, I took one anyway.
And now I was almost back, time to remove my hood and take a photo. It was almost not raining at this point!
I look very sweaty, and old. So damn old.
Then it rained again, but how can I leave without pulling my stance?
This guy is taking his shoes seriously.
Around the main port area of sun moon lake there are tourist shops and hotels, everything you can think of is there, its a small city really.
I greatly enjoyed running a lap of the lake in the rain.
Exploring the interesting streets of Puli
There I was minding my own business, going for one last lap of Puli at night, watching the step counter on my watch, when some guys across the road desperately leapt onto their bicycles and excitedly crossed through all the traffic without looking to greet me, 'heey, heeeeeey!!! hello!', mormons of course.
I think I wrote about them on my last Japan trip when they turned up in small town Japan too, but I really did not think they would get out to small town Taiwan.
There are a few things I dont understand, they all come from Utah, are there any young men at all left in Utah? Where do they get the money to fund all this world travel from? What are they hoping to achieve in this part of Taiwan?
No time for that, I was getting asked a thousand questions by 4 guys with name tags, I chose to respond to the question of what am I doing in Taiwan? 'Recruiting actors for the Taiwanese production of The book of mormon - the musical, are you guys interested? I am here visiting from Melbourne where its on currently, we think the Taiwanese market will be huge for us'.
They laughed, and waited for me to say I was kidding, but I just held my glare, like only I can do, and they quietly rode off.
Anyway, other than that, I just had dinner and walked around the city one last time until I got to 50,000 steps. I have an addiction now. There are probably worse things to be addicted to. Dont worry, I forecast tomorrow I will not even get to 30,000 steps, so there wont be a boring watch face picture 3 days in a row.
Puli was a lot quieter tonight. My suspicion that it is a weekend tourist destination for people visiting the nearby attractions seems to be true.
This is apparently, the night market. Not a lot happening.
Here is the only food stand at the night market, currently unattended. You select what you want and they put it in a pot and boil it for a while.
A piece of wire with ribbon on the end spins around to keep the flies off.
My dinner was very healthy but a little unusual. It is a few vegetarian ravioli, with lots of green vegetables, in a kind of thai curry flavoured soup. Not bad, good for healthy.
This is quite a nice supermarket on the ground floor in a nice building. A bit hard to see in the darkness, looks kind of French.
One last neon photo of Puli at night.
Christmas is coming. So are the mormons, run!
And here it is, another 50k today. 110k+ in the last 2 days. Feet in good condition.
According to the good people at Garmin, my normal average of 25,000 steps a day puts me into the top 2% of the population. Which is pretty sad really. I have been averaging closer to 35,000 a day on this trip.
I command everyone get off their fat asses and walk more, now!