In the morning, breezes by the coast seem their freshest, and also just the right amount of playful to highlight some of my favorite parts of biking in Taiwan.
Of course, if one is looking for adventure, the best time to fight the coastal winds is at night; oftentimes they are so strong that I struggle to hold my bike underneath me, and my speed going one direction is quite literally twice that going the other direction. No question about it, the time to make one’s heart race is night-time, when the darker stretches of empty coastal highway edge toward creepy. Perhaps the road is only illuminated by the gaudy flash of the nearest beetlenut stand, or establishments with names like “夜貓子” (night owl) or “something flower” where the “flower” is clearly not referring to anything botanical. I thank the winds at my back when I blast through the dark past these places, only to then find myself hunched down and cursing how slowly I crawl back the opposite direction.
But first thing in the morning, the winds at the coast tend to be calmer, and it’s the perfect time to take in the little fragments that make up life in nowhere-particular, Taiwan. The empty road promises simplicity and serenity in the cool morning light: instead of only the glare of distant flashing lights, the scenery is a tapestry of vegetable patches, aquaculture, strips of sea-coast, and single-building factories. Instead of just drying out my mouth with the force of the air, the winds whip around in scent-laden eddies that make it obvious what the nearby human activities are simply by smell: the pungent and unmistakable smell of drying fish, the thick smell of manure, and others that are more mysterious or subtle. A field has recently be replowed and the smell of raw earth? A paintjob on that corrugated steel building? A butchershop and the smell of surfaces that have touched a thousand pieces of raw meat? A new kind of pesticide applied to this field?
And instead of only hearing the roaring of wind rushing past, mornings are filled with a variety of noises. I’ve stumbled across celebrations for local gods more often than I thought possible while out biking in the morning. The clanging and wailing instruments, the firecrackers promise a lively crowd, but usually everyone milling about looks half awake and only partially committed to the event. Often the voices are just the strings of schoolkids on bikes trundling down the road in matching uniforms. I tend to pass them in laughing and chattering clumps at first, but if I loop back just a few minutes later, only a few stragglers peddling voraciously to get to class in time remain.
Gradually, the road traffic also picks up as time passes in the morning. Usually, the breezes begin to quell, but the quiet and calm rapidly slips away with them. People start to commute to work, each with a roar and a puff of moped exhaust. And just like that, the fresh dawn gives way to the hot, crowded air of just another workday. Whereas the dark and challenge of the winds seem to stretch on for an endless night, the window of daybreak calm is preciously short.
Two notes: look forward to a burst of frequent updates. I’m going to try for a post every day for the next week. Maybe quality/length will be comparably decreased. Also, I changed a few things about the site, so for anyone actually reads this in a browser and not just in email updates, feel free to let me know if you have any opinions.