This morning was the most difficult for me, the day when I was really sorry my schedule is so tough and I cannot stay longer. I spent last night at CouchSurfing, my hosts were Ruby and her sister Nicki – and the chat with them was just amazing. But if I wanted to arrive to my next destination Chiayi before it gets really hot, I had to leave their house before 7am without even saying bye to them. Hope I can meet them once again and repay their hospitality.

I still have not learnt how to handle stress.
Until I discovered last week that I can possibly take a train from Chiayi to Alishan (80 kilometers and elevation gain 3 000 meters) to get to Tataka (base camp to climb Mt. Jade (Jushan)), I was waking up during night stressed that I cannot make it (well, also for extreme pain in my muscles)
But as the cycling goes better last few days, today I decided I will try it, tomorrow I will try this uphill only with my own power, without a help of car, bus or train! Let’s see what my body will say tomorrow afternoon, or on Friday when I need to do the actual climb to Yushan summit – up and down in one day (usually people do it in 2 days) I am sure I will regret this decision.

Traditional Taiwanese food are dumplings. We saw how they are preparing them during lunch with my today’s host Peggy.

Temples in Chiayi. I liked when people took wooden pieces and throw them on the floor (unfortunately I couldn’t understand meaning of this)

Today cycled 75 kilometers