A couple days ago, I began describing some of the differences between riding in southern China and the Midwest of America. I want to continue the theme today.
Critters - One of the many odd things about my riding experience in China was that I rarely saw any wildlife. True, much of my cycling was done in a polluted, chaotic and sprawling metropolis that was barely fit for the 10 million humans who lived there. But I also rode a lot in undeveloped mountainous areas – like Nankunshan and Maofengshan – surrounded with lush subtropical forests, places you would think would be crawling with all sorts of critters. However, the only wild creature I remember seeing was a lime green lizard with really bad timing. He ran in front of my front wheel on a steep mountain descent, and I’m afraid I crushed his spine. I did see plenty of rats in the city and a turtle or two in the Pearl River by my home, but I can’t recall seeing any squirrels, rabbits or deer in rural areas. It was as if the countryside were stripped of all wildlife during China’s many famines. The Chinese have a knack for driving nature to the mat and getting it into a deadly choke hold. (OK, my Czech, German and Irish ancestors arrived in America after the white man wiped out the buffalo.)
My friend Brendan and I saw a huge rat climbing the garbage-shrewn bank of this stream near Bapian Mountain. We stopped and stared at it for five minutes. I snapped some photos but the rat just looked like a black blob.
The province where I lived, Guangdong, is home to the Cantonese – famous for being adventurous eaters: dogs, cats, frogs, scorpions, turtles. You name it, they’ll pick it up with their chopsticks. One of the cruelest, most disturbing things I’ve seen in my life was on display in Guangzhou’s famous Qingping market. It was some sort of small deer stuffed in a cage. The cage was so cramped that to get the animal to fit into it, the butcher had to hack off the deer’s legs at the knees. The creature stared out at me, eyes filled with pain and fear, with four bloody stumps sticking out of the cage. I witnessed this when I was a language student in China in the late 80s, but I can still close my eyes and see that animal.
In stark contrast, America’s rural and suburban Midwest region seems to be full of wildlife. I’ve been seeing a lot of wild geese. On one ride, they blocked the road, and I had to unclip and stand there with a guy in a big pickup truck, waiting for them to waddle slowly away as if they owned the road. If they tried a stunt like that in China, the whole flock would be captured with nets and on sale in the nearest market within minutes. I’ve already mentioned the raccoons in a recent post. Deer are everywhere. Yesterday, I was riding home in the middle of the afternoon when I saw a big fat pear-shaped brown mammal lounging around on my neighbor’s front yard. I quickly ruled out the dog or cat possibility. It looked like a beaver without the flat tail (I saw a beaver on another outing!). I’m certain it was a wood chuck. My neighbor behind me said she had a family of them living under her deck. Before I passed the creature, it woke up and scampered away.
I like to ride hard, hammer down the road like everyone else does. But I also love cycling because it’s a great way to get out and see things. I’m always ready to stop my workout to gawk at wildlife. I like the feeling of being in the presence of something that lives in another world with different rules and cares. It’s always a thrill. It’s also comforting. The presence of wildlife tells you that you’re living in a place that’s healthy enough to support all kinds of life. You’re not living on a factory floor or a toxic waste dump.
UPDATE: After reading the post, Brendan found a great picture of the rat at Bapian Mountain and shared it with me:
At the 10-kilometer mark, it looked like the road might just corkscrew around Bei Feng Mountain for the last 2 kilometers to the summit. But I wouldn’t know for sure until I turned a sharp curve that would give me a good view of what was ahead. As I rounded the corner, there it was: the final segment of road that just snaked its way up one side of the mountain. It was Medieval in its cruelty. It didn’t look real. It looked like part of the set of a Lord of the Rings movie. I thought for sure that I would pass Frodo and Sam plodding along the road.
The red dot is Taishan, and the black star is Guangzhou, the home of Waffles & Steel.
This was my cool-down ride after Sunday’s 8.4-kilometer race up Bei Feng (or North Summit) Mountain near the city of Taishan in the southern province of Guangdong. The race didn’t finish at the summit, and I’m not sure why. I’m thankful it didn’t because the final ascent to the summit was an absolute killer.
The entire climb – from the race start to the summit – was 12.5 kilometers and we gained 873 meters in elevation. The average gradient was 7 percent, but it hit 20 percent in some areas. The views were breathtaking, with green valleys, lush forests and reservoirs. The mountain was undeveloped, nearly pristine. It was another reminder of how fantastically beautiful this country can be. In so many ways, China reminds me of the American West. Wherever humans settle, you’re bound to see some of the most tragic eyesores created by man. Depressing strip malls, drab homes, monotonous agriculture, abandoned rusty junk. But if you can get away from “civilization,” you’ll meet nature at her breath-taking best. Soaring mountains, vast deserts, thick forests, raging rivers. All in a land that has yet to go gaga over jet skis, bass boats, mobile homes and ski resorts.
I’ll shut up now and let the pictures tell the story, with a little help from captions.
Source: Banovic Data & Graphics Industries
Backing up a bit: This is the scene we saw as we drove toward the race, looking for the starting line. Just beyond the rice paddies lies the source of our pain.
We often felt like we were climbing into the sky.
This is the last chain-busting segment of the climb to the peak. I wanted to shoot it while I was climbing but I really needed both hands on my bars because it was such a brutal climb.
My goals for the 8.4-kilometer Bei Feng Mountain climbing race were pathetically unambitious. First, I wanted to hang with the peloton for at least the first 200 meters, until the starting-line crowd could no longer see us as we disappeared around a sharp bend and into a heavily forested area. In China, races usually start out super fast, with riders going balls out berzerk the second the gun goes off. I don’t have a fast-twitch muscle in my body, so this is a serious problem for me. I’m purely a strength, or endurance, cyclist who does better when the serious climbs come at the 100-kilometer mark. My second goal was not to get swallowed up by the B Group peloton, which started 2 minutes after us.
To my great relief, the peloton took off at a sane pace, and I was still in the mix after 500 meters when the road started to turn up. Surprisingly, I was still hanging on at the 1-kilometer mark when the incline started to bite really hard. Then the hammer went down and the tempo quickly picked up. I was gasping for oxygen and my legs already felt drenched in lactic acid. A second later, I went flying out the back door – cycling jargon for being dropped hard, being left for dead by the pack. Joining me in the caboose of the pain train were three junior riders who were put into the elite A Group division at the last minute. They were teen-age stick figures, weighing about 40 kilos each. They were long on promise but short on conditioning. It looked like a good “youth vs. experience” battle was brewing between us.
Brendan powering across the line.
Up the mountain, my friend Brendan – the only other foreigner in the A Group – was holding his own as usual. During his four-year stint in Guangzhou, Brendan has been the fastest expat racer by far – truly in a league of his own. Currently riding for Trek’s team, he rarely missed a race in the area and often traveled to other parts of China to compete. He’s spent a lot of time on the podium and was always in contention, even when working his butt off for a teammate. This is outstanding for someone with a demanding job, a wife and two kids. Most of the Chinese riders are young single guys who don’t have to juggle so many heavy career and family demands. Brendan has become a legend in the local racing scene and learned enough Mandarin to be able to chat with the local riders, who obviously have an immense amount of respect for him. Bei Feng was his last race before moving back to the U.S. Although he has been scaling back his training because he’s been busy preparing his move, he was still able to finish fifth, 4:21 ahead of me and fast enough to be included in the award ceremony. It’s going to be a long time before another person like Brendan comes along in Guangzhou, and for sure he’s become a permanent fixture in the local cycling lore. He should be commended for his athletic talent and passion for the sport as well as the role he played as a diplomat for cycling and his country.
Shortly after the 2-kilometer mark, a couple of B Group riders hammered past me. I did a shoulder check, just dreading the possibility of the rest of the peloton bearing down on me. It wasn’t, though, so I pushed the pace and tried to stick with the B Group leaders. By the 3-kilometer point, I had picked off two of the junior riders who were in serious difficulty. I knew that the road would level out between the third and fourth kilometers, so I powered past the third-and-last junior rider, who was racing in a wife-beater T-shirt. At the 4-kilometer mark, the road kicked up steeply for a few 100 meters before leveling off. The rest of the race was like that: short steep climb…short stretch of level road…killer switchback…level again…brutal short climb…false flat…then the final 200 meters or so were up a steep incline to the finish line.
This graphic was supplied by the race organizers. A more detailed analysis by Banovic Data & Graphics Industries puts the total elevation at 469.3 meters, distance at 8.41 kilometers and average gradient at 5.9 percent.
Source: Banovic Data & Graphics Industries
I accomplished my two feeble goals: staying with the group for the first kilometer and fending off the B Group peloton. I did have an unstated goal, which I fell far short of. I didn’t want to finish last. I was hoping that one of the elite riders would go out so hard that he would blow up spectacularly so that I could reel him in. It didn’t happen. I finished exactly 9 minutes behind the winner, Xu Rujie, who crossed the line in 25:27 at an average speed of 20.75 kph. I tooled along at 15.33 kph to finish in 34:27. The rider who finished just in front of me got me by 38 seconds.
The winner, Xu Rujie, flying up the last climb.
I’m trying to remember the last time I finished last in a race. I’m pretty sure it was in high school when my track coach still wasn’t sure what kind of a runner I was. He put me in the 400 once, and I’m pretty sure I finished last. It’s one of those youthful traumas you try to forget, I guess. Anyway, after that race, my coach started having me do what we called the “graveyard shift” – running the mile and two mile in the same meet. He quickly figured out that my legs only got going after running the mile event.
Observe the dork in polka dots placing last. Next time, he'll show up in a yellow jersey.
Check out the video of the race here. The funny thing is that they apparently edited out Brendan and me. Or maybe they didn’t even shoot us. I don’t know why they would do this. Perhaps the race organizers signed up for a cheaper form of insurance that wouldn’t include foreigners. But I noticed the video did include a Japanese rider. I’m trying to imagine the reaction if Asians were edited out of a video shot of a race in America or Europe. To be sure, I’m not upset about this. I’m really more amused and puzzled. It’s weirdness that I became accustomed to long, long ago.
I’m just happy and grateful no one made any wisecracks about my polka-dotted jersey and my last place finish!
Next: The fantastic post-race ride
(Editor’s note: Waffles & Steel takes great pride in the fact that most of the photos used on the site are produced by our own photographers. But due to the difficulties posed by China’s Great Firewall, our photos couldn’t be uploaded today. The wonderful photos were found here. There are many more so check them out.)
The polka-dotted jersey is worn by the King of the Mountains – a cyclist with super human abilities to climb faster than anyone else in a race. I had no business wearing the dots Sunday when I lined up for a race at Bei Feng Mountain in southern China. But there I was with the mammoth measles all over my torso as I stood on the starting line with the elite A Group – 11 riders who looked like they were born to climb. They were super skinny, whippets on wheels whose lightness of being gives them a huge advantage when the road turns up. Any extra gram that won’t help you get up a mountain can drag you down. Climbers are maniacs about weight.
I might have missed it but I don't see an ounce of fat here. (More about the guy in green in a later post.)
If I had known I would be racing, I wouldn’t have had the chutzpah to put on the polka dots. I missed the deadline to sign up for the competition, so I had planned to cheer on my friends and then spend the rest of the day cycling in the spectacular mountains. I wore my polka-dotted jersey because it has roomy back pockets that I planned to stuff with a rain cape, snacks, camera, mobile phone, pump, tubes and any gear my friends might need me to haul for them. I also thought it would be OK for a geeky cheering roadside fan to be in red dots. Most importantly, the spots professed my love for the climbing part of bike racing. With most sports, the competition gets more interesting when the game gets faster, when the action speeds up. But it’s the opposite in cycling. When the great stage races – Italy’s Giro, Spain’s Vuelta or the Tour de France – head into the mountains, the tempo slows but the heroism, drama and pain increases. It’s in the mountains where we see races blown open by spectacular ascents. We see leaders crack. We see horrific, sometimes deadly, accidents. We see riders dueling on mountain slopes and switchbacks that would leave most humans gasping for air and drowning in lactic acid. This is why I love the battle for the polka dots.
But as I packed my gear bag, a wise voice inside my head told me I should bring another jersey – just in case I ended up racing. As usual, I ignored the voice. When I was already out the door, I found out a friend overslept and wouldn’t be competing, so I decided to race under his name in the elite competition. But I felt awkward and embarrassed when I thought about racing in polka dots. They sent a bold message – I can kick every one’s butt – that a rider of my age, talent and form just can’t back up. Indulging in wishful thinking, I started to wonder if the Chinese would really interpret it that way. The dots come from a European cycling tradition that they might not truly understand or appreciate. That silly theory was shot down as soon as I lined up for a race. A Chinese rider approached me and said, “Hey, everyone is talking about you because you’re wearing the King of the Mountains jersey. They’re worried about you. They think you’re really going to be good.” Oh jeez.
Riding down a road that’s heading straight into a mountain range. Feelings of trepidation about the pain ahead. Self doubt about whether you can really get to the top this time. Worries about the constant threat of mishaps, mechanicals, danger. It’s all racing around your brain as you get closer and closer to the mountains. It’s one of my favorite parts of a ride. In the picture above, the monster covered in clouds on the left side of the photo is Nankun Shan (“shan” means mountain in Chinese). It probably offers the best climbing in Guangzhou. Last Saturday, I rode it with my fellow explorer, Brendan. In about five hours, we covered about 110 kilometers in rainy and often bone-chilling weather.
Every ride in China is an adventure for us. A journey full of challenges and the unexpected. The last time we did Nankunshan, construction crews had ripped up a long section of road to the base of the mountain. All we had to ride on was a bumpy, slippery ribbon of mud, sand and rocks. We were hoping the project was completed. We were disappointed. There were a couple kilometers of road that were still unfinished, and we had to shift into cyclocross mode and power over it. Our bikes quickly became filthy and the gritty mud clogged up my brakes.
The morning drizzle made matters worse, and sometimes we had cars and buses riding on our wheels. There was no room for error. With a slip and a fall, we could quickly find ourselves beneath a vehicle.
We finally made it to the front side of Nankunshan, a 17-kilometer climb that kind of ebbs and flows. Some sections will dunk you into the red zone, but you won’t be there for too long before the road levels out a bit and you can recover. The gradient isn’t too painfully steep. But Brendan found a side road that offered a chain-busting, quad-shredding 1-kilometer climb.
He bravely completed the nasty climb, while I wussied out, fearing I’d pull a muscle or pop my chain, which should have been replaced a few months ago.
Here’s a profile of the climb:
Source: Banovic Data & Graphics Inc.
The climb up the front side of Nankunshan ends at this ornate gate.
Beyond the gate, there’s a parking lot, where hawkers have set up rickety stands and sell all kinds of things to the tour bus crowds. The gal below is selling “Tofu Flowers,” a type of custard made from bean curd.
There was another woman selling these critters: rats – with their heads and tails still attached – that have been dried, smoked and flattened.
While I was looking at the rat jerky, an elderly Chinese tourist walked up to the booth and said, “Oh, rats!” She spoke with a burry Beijing accent, so I asked her if people up North eat rats like this. She scrunched up her nose and said, “Oh no, we would never eat rats!” The Cantonese are famous for being adventurous eaters. The gal below assured me that rats are very tasty and are good for your hair.
We often ride down the back side of Nankunshan, then turn around and do an out-and-back course. On Saturday, though, we took a different route that was more of a roller coaster ride with a bunch of climbs that were tough but no longer than 3 or 4 kilometers.
The scenery was mind-blowingly lush. It was like we were riding through a jungle. A thousand shades of green. Ferns, elephant grass, palm trees with massive leaves and bamboo galore.
This is the biggest tree I’ve ever seen in China. A whole colony of Ewoks could live in it. Usually when a tree gets this tall, the Chinese will chop it down. It’s dangerous or blocks a road project or it’s just too damn irresistible. With all that wood, you can smoke a million rats!
I’ve never seen this before in China. The massive tree trunk had a cavity – or a grotto – that people were using as a shrine. They tacked up prayer ribbons and had burned incense.
A village in a mountain valley. I would love to buy one of these homes and use it for weekend climbing training camps.
A narrow passage at the top of one of the climbs.
We always stop in one village that has a long line of shops that cater to the tour bus crowd. Each shop sells exactly the same thing. Things go in and out of style and season. Once, the hot item was pickled hornets displayed in huge jars. This time, everyone was selling bamboo shoots, which are delicious.
The long descent off Nankunshan was more painful than the ascent. That’s because the weather never warmed up and the rain was worse. It was like standing under a cold shower. My shoulders and back started seizing up on me. I started worrying about muscle spasms. My quads felt like semi-thawed hamburger meat by the time I got to the bottom of the mountain and had to get through the muddy, ripped-up section of road again.
By the time we plowed over the muddy road, our bikes were filthy, and we weren’t looking forward to putting them into the mini van. Then we met this happy-looking guy above. He had a roadside car-washing operation. He sprayed down both of our bikes for less than $1. Then he asked us to join him for tea! Like I said, there’s always an adventure.
The Chinese sensibility continues to mystify me. Their aesthetics and relationship with nature are so difficult to understand. I took these pictures at Bapian Mountain. As you climb the mountain, there are beautiful rock faces (Is that the right term?) where construction crews cut through stone when building the road. The sad thing is that on many of the rocks, officials have painted slogans urging people to prevent fires.
"Beware of starting fires with cigarettes"
What seems bizarre to me is that they spent millions building this highly technical road that winds its way 7 kilometers up this mountain just to get to some type of telecom station. The road is really an engineering marvel. Yet, they decided not to spend a little money on signs telling people not to carelessly toss their cigarette butts. Instead, they decided to ruin the beauty of these rocks by painting on them. Still, the only type of trash you see on the road are cigarette butts (though I did find something else that’s really interesting and I’ll write about it later).
"Prevent fires!"
I try really hard to see things from the Chinese point of view. Here’s my best stab at the Chinalogic this time: “If we build a sign, someone is just going to tear it down or the wind will blow it away. Without the sign, people will start flicking their ciggy butts again and spark a brush fire that threatens the city below. Tens of thousands of lives could be in danger. We could be blamed for not creating a really durable sign that warns the masses about causing fires. So considering the threat, it’s OK to create an indestructible sign by spray painting a few rocks. Most of the others will remain in their natural state, so there’s plenty left to admire. Like the protagonist in ‘Crime and Punishment’ said: One crime, a thousand good deeds!”
Switchbacks galore. Stunning mountaintop views. A mellow average 7.3 percent gradient. Almost no traffic. Bapian Mountain is incredible. I knew I was in for a treat. I saw pictures of the climb a few days before Saturday’s ride. But the real thing far exceeded my already-high expectations. That’s such a wonderful feeling.
Bapian Mountain is in Qingyuan, a third-tier city about a 1.5 hour drive north of Guangzhou. Qingyuan is a mildly industrial town – big enough for a KFC restaurant – that seems to be shifting into tourism. Mountain valleys were crowded with hot spring resorts and restaurants. There was a small river that’s used for tubing and rafting. But for me, of course, the best attraction is the 7.5 kilometer climb (see profile below) up Bapian. The insanely technical, twisty-curvy road leads to some kind of signal intelligence station or telecom tower. Again, it’s another one of those things that could have been built by the Dharma Initiative.
I don’t recall seeing any guardrails along any part of the climb. In some spots, the road runs across a ridge, with steep drop offs on each side of the road.
We only saw one car – an SUV – on the road. However, there were a few motorcycles ridden by guys who were apparently illegally harvesting bamboo shoots, which people love to eat here. I’m quite fond of them myself. You’ve got to be careful with the motorcycles because the Chinese like to cut their engines when they’re descending to save gas. So you can’t hear them coming, and it’s easy to collide with them when they come flying around the blind corners.
My friend Brendan discovered this climb. He’s done more exploring in this part of China than any other expat cyclist that I know. He’s also an incredible climber.
Dancing on the pedals close to the top.
The ride started with a classic gawkfest. Our mini van parked near a roadside chicken coop. The three guys (above) watched us slip into our bike kit. They even watched as we rubbed lotion on our butts to guard against saddle sores. In my culture, if a man is dressing near you, you move away, turn the other way or at least avert your eyes. In China, you light up a cigarette and move in for a front seat view. The funny thing is that the chickens didn’t gawk at us. The guy in the wine-colored jacket on the far left was the most shameless.
I don’t know if it was fog or pollution or a bit of both, but it’s too bad we didn’t have a clear view because the scenery is spectacular. I kept getting mad at my camera for only capturing a fraction of the beauty.
A mountain goat’s paradise. The road just goes everywhere. I saw the Google Earth picture (below) before the ride and couldn’t believe the climb could really have so many switchbacks. It’s really a mind-blowing experience for a guy who grew up in one of the world’s flattest places.
Source: Banovic Graphics Inc.
Brendan was doing the climb one day and was startled when a metal hoe came crashing down on the road about 10 feet from him. There was a small group of women working on a ridge above him. They were preparing to descend the mountain and just started tossing their tools down onto the road without checking if anyone was there. It’s just typical for China.
Whenever I travel for my job, I try to bring my bike along. I always try to stay in race shape, so I can’t afford to be off the bike during trips that can last as long as a month. I also hate working out in hotel gyms, pedaling in a pool of sweat on a squeaky stationary bike facing a wall. I would much rather explore a city by bike, and traveling with one is easy with the latest bike boxes and bags that are relatively light and protect your rig.
In Taipei, I can get in a tough two-hour ride in the mountains before work if I get out the door by 5:30 a.m. It’s a fantastic ride that begins in the “Blade Runner”-like urban chaos of Taipei and within a few kilometers takes you into the lush green mountains that provide terrific views of the humming, sprawling city below.
Taiwan is undergoing a cycling renaissance. Bicycles were once the main form of transport for the masses before the leaf-shaped island evolved into a manufacturing juggernaut and the economy boomed. But the people who shifted to motor scooters and then cars are rediscovering the joys of cycling. On the weekends in Yangmingshan, the roads are filled with people pedaling everything from Colnagos and Pinarellos to tricked-out collapsable bikes.
My favorite ride is a 92-kilometer out-and-back route from the Feeling Hotel, over the mountains in Yangmingshan National Park and down to Jin Shan beach on the northeastern Pacific coast. The climbs can be steep, and in one five-kilometer section, I felt like the two greasy fried eggs and toast I had for breakfast were inching their way up my gullet with each pedal stroke.
But the payoff is huge as you speed down long descents into mountain valleys where farmers grow vegetables in small terraced plots on the hills. Elderly ladies set up rickety stands under umbrellas on the side of the road and sell cabbages, eggplants and greens. One itinerant butcher in a rusty red van throws a wooden chopping block on the roadside and hacks up cuts of meat for passers-by.
The park is full of hot sulfur vents that spew steamy clouds into the air that smell like rotten eggs. The tropical rainforest vegetation is loaded with bamboo groves and tall grasses, where locust-like insects make a strange metallic whirling noise that sound like a space ship is about to land.
A switchback-filled descent of about 20 kilometers ends at Jin Shan Beach. When I rode there on a recent Saturday, the beach was full of young Taiwanese surfers enjoying the higher waves being kicked up by a tropical storm.
I stopped at a roadside food wagon, and ordered a second breakfast of coffee and waffles with a generous dollop of whipped cream. I sat down at a small plastic cafe table and watched the people riding the waves.
When I turned around to go home, I could see dark rain clouds hanging over the mountain. Rather than wait out the storm, I decided to push through it.
A hard rain began to fall about 10 minutes into the climb back over the mountain. But as I pedaled higher, I climbed out of the storm and spent the rest of the way uphill in a fantastically refreshing mist that kept me cool. It was much like a dream.
I returned to the hotel absolutely exhausted but with a wonderful buzz from being in the spectacular outdoors. I lugged my bike up the steps of the Feeling Hotel and opened the door with a big smile on my sunburned face. As I stepped into the lobby, I saw the Taiwanese man in the black suit with his date. He was also grinning, also looking tired but happy.
We were guys staying at the same hotel with our mistresses.
He looked like a Taiwanese gangster, with permed hair, black suit and pointy knockoff Italian loafers. It was 5:30 a.m. and he was renting a room for a few hours with a woman in a leather mini skirt, fishnet stockings and the longest false eyelashes I’ve ever seen. They had no luggage.
My mistress was my climbing bike, and I was carrying her out of the hotel lobby for a morning workout when I passed the couple as they were checking in.
It must have been a surreal sight for them, a tall Western guy in a red polka-dotted jersey and black biking shorts, lugging a magenta road bike and clip-clopping out the door in cycling shoes.
I was doing what I love to do: taking my bike on a business trip and staying at an inexpensive, no-frills hotel close to some spectacular cycling terrain.
This time, I was bunking at the Feeling Hotel _ one of the numerous “love hotels” in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. They are cheap places often used for lunchtime flings and one-night stands in crowded Taipei, where privacy can be hard to find. The establishments are designed for discretion, often located in alleys or backstreets. Rooms can be rented by the hour, and no questions are asked. A complimentary condom can usually be found in the bedside table.
Best of all, you can roll a bike through the lobby and wedge it in the elevator without anyone hassling you. The staff is used to weirdness.
Although they may sound seedy, establishments like the Feeling Hotel are clean and well-run by professional and friendly staff. They’re usually small and only offer bare-bones amenities, but that often means the rooms are inexpensive, about US$50 a night at the Feeling Hotel. This makes them popular with families and business travelers during these hard economic times.
The biggest plus for me was that the Feeling Hotel is at the base of the spectacular mountains of Yangmingshan National Park, just outside of Taipei. The hotel in the suburb of Tienmu _ long popular with expats _ is also surrounded by great restaurants, stores, decent bike shops but few standard hotels.
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