Taiwan Trip 2015 (台灣30天環島記) - Day 10: Kaohsiung 高雄 (Lao Jiang Red Tea 老江紅茶), Kenting 墾丁 (Langkawi Hotel 南卡威音樂餐廳旅店, South Beach 南灣, Kenting Main Street 墾丁大街)
I got up quite early this morning and then headed for another famous local breakfast shop - Lao Jiang Red Tea which was just opposite the road of my hostel. The shop is known as Lao Jiang Red Tea and is supposedly famous for their toasts and milk tea.
-Day 10 end-
Unfortunately there was a small construction going on nearby with all the banging, I didn't really had the chance to slowly appreciate the food. But after trying so many breakfast shops I think most of the food tasted quite similar. The milk tea, however is the deal breaker. I'm trying to figure out why they taste so good but I'm guessing that they are using their own version of fresh milk (or they breed their own cows) instead of the skimmed milk.
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| Milk tea & butter toast NTD 75 |
I then headed towards Zuoying station via MRT to board a bus down to Kenting. It is very convenient to get to the extremely popular beach down south as there are express buses departing every 30 minutes. The express bus passes by several big stops along the route to Kenting so you can drop off wherever you feel like it, notable ones include Hengchun township which is a few kilometres away from Kenting.
To buy the bus tickets you have to go to the second floor of the Zuoying HSR station, or buy it directly on the bus (which I did but not advisable lol). A one way ticket NTD 418 however a return ticket is much cheaper at NTD 650. Outside the bus there will be the big words of Tour Taiwan (台灣好行) as well with the words of the 3 bus companies servicing this route, namely 國光客運, 高雄客運 and 屏東客運 in which tourists can take either one of these buses.
The journey to Kenting without traffic jam is about 1-2 hours as I soon find myself at Kenting Main Street which was quite dead at that time due to the fact that it was winter and it was a Tuesday whereby most shops close for rest. So yeah, try to avoid Tuesdays unless you want to find yourself walking the whole Kenting main street trying to look for food during the day.
Anyway, the first thing I did was to check in my hotel. Since I had no idea where exactly is the best place to stay at Kenting (read a lot of reviews until I'm confused), I decided to play safe by staying where the most happening place is at Kenting, which is the Kenting Main Street due to the fact they have the night market here every night. But if its the proximity towards the beach & some peace that you are looking for, perhaps staying at South Beach (Nanwan)/ Baishawan/ Sail rock (船帆石) area would be more appropriate. Having said that, I think resort hotels back in Langkawi pretty much wins everything on offer here at Kenting haha. The main selling points here would be the B & Bs.
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| Pic credits from http://ktlangkawi.web66.com.tw/ |
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| Queen sized bed-room all to myself! |
For me I stayed 2 nights at Langkawi Hotel (南卡威). Yes I was quite amused by the name as well. For about RM70-80 per night it was actually quite a good deal considering the original price ranges into RM300-400. Not sure how I could forget to take a photo of the hotel so I grabbed a picture from another website above. It is a combination of a hotel and a bar so it could get reaaaaaally noisy on the nights when the bar is in operation. As you enter the hotel the whole place looks really dodgy and run down. The room is visibly old and there were many patches here and there and not cleaned properly. There was even leftover water in the electric kettle in my room which even grew algae lol. But again. at the price I paid it was really quite a steal so no complaints there.
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| NTD 100 |
Since I did not do any proper research prior coming to Kenting I was at a complete lost on how to even start my day. All I had in mind was that I would like to learn how to surf here and that's it. I figured I should get my tummy filled first before my exploring so I tried a restaurant selling seafood. I ordered one dish of salmon sashimi accompanied by a bowl of white rice. Surprisingly sashimi at Kenting is really cheap and it could be even cheaper if you know where to find them (will elaborate in a subsequent post).
After lunch I wanted to locate a visitor centre to ask how should I get around but after walking almost the whole stretch of the Main Street I couldn't find any. I then continued walking towards the nearest beach, which was 10 minutes away mind you to incredulously find a 'no swimming sign'.
As I expected, the beach was pretty dead as the waters were really cold at that time and only the bravest could endure swimming in such temperatures. After loitering around for awhile, I somehow figured out that there were regular public buses that tourists could take to travel around and headed towards to South Beach.
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| Express & non-express bus routes |
At the South Beach I then bumped into A Fei's Surfing School which I gladly signed up for their surfing lessons the next day. Initially I thought I had no chance to learn surfing as their branch at Kenting Main Street was closed for the day. It's lucky that I made the trip down to Nanwan.
Since night was near I then headed back and explored the Kenting Night Market. Basically the whole streets lined up with stalls and the whole area suddenly became quite alive. Throngs of students appeared by the busloads out of no where. I was getting quite worried that Kenting was not as happening as I thought it would be.
For my dinner I bought the usual Taiwanese street snacks, i.e. Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang, Fried Sweet Potatoes. And then I stumbled upon this store selling fried oreos which seemed interesting at first, but it was a total rip off.
At NTD 60 I only get 4 pieces of oreos in which I couldn't even taste the cream. Oh well. The remainder of the night was spent hiding in room on my comfy bed streaming videos as I was just too exhausted to join in the fun at the bar below. I would join if they had the sexy lady performance but on that night they only had the handsome guy there so I passed.
Also, this also officially marked that I have covered half of Taiwan island!
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