Taiwan: Kenting

Theoretically, we were going to have about 3.5 days to explore the southern tip of Taiwan but, as mentioned a few posts ago, the bus ride from Kaohsuing took a bit longer than we anticipated, delaying our arrival until the middle of the evening and eliminating the ".5" part of the "3.5" theoretical days. There were also two days of heavy rain--heavy as in the streets became flooded within minutes--thus shaving our three days down to one. This may sound like a disastrous few days, but things actually ended up working in our favor.  Allow me to clarify a few things:

1) We knew it was typhoon season before we even booked our flights so we were prepared for some washouts. (In retrospect, we were really lucky to only have 2 days of rain. The weather was great for the rest of the trip).

2) The first day in Kenting was beautiful, (more on that shortly).

3) Our SPF 35 did absolutely nothing to protect us from the sun. The fact that we had cloud cover and rain for the next two days was actually a relief, (even cold showers hurt my skin).

4) While it rained exceptionally hard, it only rained for brief periods of time so we weren't confined to our hostel all day.

We woke up on our first day and immediately inquired about renting scooters. We were told that we would need to have an international driver's license, (which we didn't), in order to rent from most of the places. The girl at our hostel told us about a place that might accommodate us, so we headed that way and sure enough, we were able to rent scooters, (The owner looked at my American license, which is expired, copied my passport number, and handed me two sets of keys). Having no experience riding a scooter, we clumsily made our way into traffic and started for the road that snaked along the western coastline.  

I should backup for a moment. We were pretty sure we'd be able to find scooter rentals in the morning, so the night before we looked at some maps and memorized a route that promised to lead us to some of the more secluded beaches. We had no idea just how secluded the secluded beaches would end up being and therefore, just how difficult it would be to find them.

After breezing along the coastal road for about an hour, we started to notice little trails heading from the roadside into the palms and (probably) down to the shoreline. When a group of scooters passed us and suddenly darted to the left, we decided it was time for a swim, so we followed them down the sandy path and ended up here:

The beach was clean and almost completely empty. The water was warm and crystal clear, (I could still see the bottom even when I couldn't touch it). We spent the whole day in and around the water, either swimming...

...or checking out the tide pools.

We rented some snorkels and cruised around some of the tide pools checking out some of the coral and the local marine life. I spent about 15 minutes following one fish all over the cove. He wasn't too entertaining though, he just kind of swam erratically from place to place only stopping briefly to stare at things and blow bubbles. 

I've already talked about the rain but I'll just add that we were able to check out the southern tip of the island in between the downpours.

I don't know what else to write, but this entry feels incomplete so I guess now is a good time to say that Caroline and I have (obviously) decided to stay in Korea for another year. Here's to hoping that the next 12 months are just as good as the last.