11th stop: Kenting

Kenting is such a beautiful place, it’s a damn shame I picked the worst possible time to visit.

The seaside town has some absolutely beautiful beaches, a great national park, and some super cool wildlife.

That being said, the only natural phenomenon I managed to experience was Typhoon Fung-Wong… 

I’d love to revisit here when it’s a bit drier and when everything is actually open, but it was still kinda fun ???? 

DAY 1

I don’t know whether it’s a winter thing but the sun sets super super early in Taiwan, usually around 5-6PM depending on where on the island you are. 

It was 7PM and it had been quite a long day of travel as I took 2 local trains and a bus to get to kenting, and it was pitch black when I arrived.

The rain was heavy and the wind, strong, that by the time I walked the 200 metres to my hostel, I was absolutely soaking wet.

Immediately, I had an emergency alert on my phone for 6 metre tall waves. Great. 

Kenting Original Hostel was super nice! I’ve had mostly good luck with the hostels I’ve stayed in so far. 4 cats so they get the cat bonus.

Given we were in the middle of a typhoon, there were very very few guests left, and most of the people I talked to were planning to leave the next day.

I also found out that I managed to catch the last bus into Kenting for 2 days. Thank god.

Had a lazy family mart dinner, spoke with the girls in my room and went to sleep.

DAY 2

I don’t know what possessed me to do what I did this day, but I woke up and decided I wanted to see the national park despite the miserable weather.

In my defence, the weather had cleared up a bit that morning, but I also chose to get there in the most idiotic way in a typhoon; walking. Why? Walking is free.

From the hostel to the national park, it’s 4km uphill, and I usually enjoy this in good weather. On the way up was pretty much fine, incline wasn’t too bad, but I was walking along the highway pretty much. 

The second I got to the top, it absolutely pelted down with rain. Sat under a bus shelter, I mentally prepared to try and find the entrance. Eventually I started fast walking towards it.

It was closed. It’s a typhoon, of course it’s closed.

So I tried going in through a back street, but immediately saw some stray dogs chasing after motorcycles and turned around.

Dogs are cute, yes, but after hearing multiple different people getting bit by them??? I was not taking my chances whilst I was by myself.

This leads me to my next problem, which I definitely should’ve seen coming. The bus I checked on Google Maps to get back down as my backup plan was cancelled. Of course. 

My two options were either:

A) walking back down in the pouring rain

B) calling an Uber 

So I picked option A as I couldn’t justify the $10 for an uber and began my walk. 

It was pretty miserable and lowkey scary as you could sometimes hear dogs barking or monkeys chirping from the bushes, so I walked as fast as I could.

Luckily it was all downhill.

At one point, I stopped to try and take a photo of the beach, but heard and saw a monkey factor crawling towards me.

One things you should know about me is I am an avid monkey hater. Macaques in particular???? Hell no.

You will never find me anywhere that begins with the word ‘monkey’ 

I will say though my exception to this rule is the Dusky Leaf Monkeys those are super cute and not aggressive :) 

At least coming down I did see a land crab which I didn’t even know was a thing but I was very excited by.

Chilled at the hostel for a bit, met up with a French girl from my hostel room for some hotpot, and spoke about language and culture all night.

Everyone else in our room had checked out so we both had a super good sleep.

DAY 3

This was a super chill day but there wasn’t a tonne to do as it was super windy and cloudy.

My new friend and I travelled up to Hengchun, which is about 30 minutes from Kenting, as there was a good vegetarian restaurant recommended by one of the other girls.

I’m not vego, but food is food and it was bloody good :) 

In the city, they have these super long and old gates you can walk along, so we did that and headed back to Kenting.

Later in the afternoon, we had a new girl join the room and we all went to check how big the waves actually were at the beach. Pretty damn big that’s how big they were.

Pretty uneventful day, but I had fun.

DAY 4

I hate check out day ughhhhhhh

But I was determined to see some of the more beachy things to do in Kenting before leaving, including the Elunabi Lighthouse. 

Something you should know about the buses in Kenting is that they aren’t the most reliable. They come on time about 75% of the time, but when they don’t, the next is usually an hour away.

Of course I initially tried to walk to the light house as it was 2 hours which wasn’t too bad, but one of the locals stopped me when I tried to go on the highway section as it wasn’t safe.

Always trust a locals word when travelling

Anyway, I failed miserably at trying to catch the bus but eventually bought the only one going towards the light house.

Elunabi doesn’t have a lot in it, but idk, I thought it had a quirky charm that I quite enjoyed. 

The day was pretty much completely clear with blue skies, and had I planned better, I would’ve went for a swim that morning. 

To get to the lighthouse, you have to cut through a temple with a hell of a lot of cats in it, and through some alleyways with dogs in them. 

Most of them were tied up so it was okay, except for one but he was missing a leg, and looked quite old. I should have pat him.

Got to the lighthouse, and guess what????? It was closed.

Determined to see something, I stopped by a little coastal town on the way back with a rock called castle rock. 

I was definitely expecting more, but the town was cute so at least there was that.

I grabbed a 7/11 lunch with tofu and pigs blood, this was delicious btw, went back, grabbed my bags and left Kenting.

I need to redo Kenting. My luck was so bad here. Typhoon, major attractions being closed, I can’t really say I didn’t it enjoy it though.

If you go, please go during summer, or yknow, not during a typhoon.