After my visit to Kaohsiung I took the bus to go to the southernmost point of Taiwan. As you probably know Taiwan is an island between Japan and China. The trip took about 2 hours and I arrived in a small town of Kenting. Kenting is well known for its beaches, sunshine and mountains. I found it warmer and less humid than Taipei. A lot of young people come to enjoy the beach or the water sports and because this past weekend was a long weekend for Labor Day, finding accommodation wasn’t easy.
The best way to do all the sightseeing in this town and the surrounding areas is to rent a scooter and that’s what I did. The town is full of restaurants, scooter rental shops, surf shops, hotels, and nothing else. The good thing that the town has not been exploited by big hotel chains so there’s still a lot of green spaces.
The scenery was just breathtaking, different than north Taiwan, you would see how the erosion formed the rocks by the sea to form a beautiful coral reefs that are visible above the water, no wonder it’s a site for scuba diving. Some rocks look like they were formed from hot plastic or dough and stayed like that after cooled off. I think they took that shape because of the hot lava that formed these rocks, I could be wrong but that’s my theory.
It was interesting to be standing at the point were you have the pacific ocean on side the Taiwan strait on the other. Most of south Taiwan first discovered and occupied by Dutch before it was ceded to Japan. Just like the rest of Taiwan, the aboriginals were here from the beginning and with the exception of few references to them you would never see anything visible to show they were here.
The Eluanbi lighthouse is one of the rare lighthouses that’s fortified and surrounded by cannons to protect it from the aboriginal tribesmen.
Surfing lifestyle in Kenting is very similar to some towns in southern California. You see a lot of surf shops with many Volkswagen Westfalia campers painted in hippy style, too bad I didn’t take a picture of that. In the evening, you will see the streets filled with crowd on the main strip with many shops and food stands all along the 2 sides of the street.
That beach is now on my must-see list! Thanks for sharing Tarek. ps. The best photos are ones with you in it. 🙂
Awesome pictures Tarek! The beach looks awesome and you are right, the site is breathtaking.
All the pictures are nice, but those rocks are just amazing!!!!
Wow Tarek on a scooter and you’re still alive ? ;o)
Nice pictures Tarek, like Matt said put more pictures with you on it.