Our Last Week in Taiwan: Exploring the Beach Town of Kenting
On Saturday, the family (excluding Dad who had to travel back to Seattle for work) embarked on a train journey to the southernmost tip of Taiwan, Kenting. Renowned for its year round hot weather and sandy beaches, Kenting provided an ideal destination for our short final week in Taiwan. We purchased train tickets on the high-speed bullet train (HSR) and did most of our school work on the short two hour ride. Next, we took a two-hour bus ride on the Kenting Express to reach the coast. The sun was already blistering by mid morning. Luckily, the hotel had arranged for a van to collect us from the bus stop, sparing us the need to walk the half hour uphill to the hotel.
We stayed at the Fullon Resort. When we arrived, it was still before 3pm and our room wasn’t quite ready, so the front desk recommended we stash our bags and head straight to the pool. Since we each had only a backpack for luggage, we simply walked right down to the pool. We spent the next two hours swimming in the hotel’s pool, which consisted of a main pool, and a children’s pool that had an amazing twisty water slide, waterfall and in-pool playground with sprayers. After approximately two hours of poolside relaxation, we showered and went to our room to unpack. After unpacking, we explored more of the hotel’s features which included a recreation room in the basement. We especially loved the large ball pit room, pay-to-play air hockey table, pool tables, and ping pong.
The hotel provided evening shuttles into the town that left every 30 minutes and began operating at 6:00 p.m. The town of Kenting has a substantial night market, so the shuttle primarily serviced those guests who wanted an evening experience in town. On our first night, we boarded the 6pm shuttle, which dropped us off at a beach called Xiao Wan, a short distance from town. When we deboarded the bus, we immediately spied a pizza food truck parked street side with a real brick oven. Not wanting to walk to the night market, we decided to purchase two pizzas for dinner and picnic on the beach. The beach sunset was beautiful and the pizza was really tasty. After dinner, we explored the tide pools and found several sand and hermit crabs. Our exploration was cut short only by the sun going down. We returned on the shuttle to the hotel and spent the remainder of our evening playing ping pong and a crazy game of air hockey (there was a lot of shouting and singing “We Are the Champions”).
The following day, after a buffet breakfast (included in our room reservation) we finished our school work and headed out on a ten-minute walk to the nearby beach of Ship’s Rock, only to discover that swimming was temporarily suspended due to high winds and currents. We still had fun playing in the crashing waves and Mom even let us go in up to our waists.
Since we couldn’t safely swim, we then decided to get back on the main road and walk the thirty minutes back to Xiao Wan Beach where we had picnicked the previous day. Upon finally arriving, drenched in sweat, it was noon. We rested and refueled with cold drinks and snacks at the nearby Starbucks, then headed to the beach.
Xiao Wan beach has beautiful rock formations both in and out of the water, but offers limited shade. For this reason, many visitors opt to rent umbrellas and beach chairs for a reasonable fee. Given the intense sunlight, we opted to rent for the day. The beach’s pristine blue water maintained an ideal temperature, which reminded us of past family trips to Hawaii.
One highlight of this beach and my personal favorite, was an aged sea-worn rock outcropping situated just where the water depth changed from waist deep to roughly 8 feet. This rock proved ideal for climbing and jumping, and for exploring and watching sea life up close with goggles. From that rock we could sea crabs, minnows, dogfish, and a variety of other sea life. Ansel and I also found a rock about the size of a brick which we positioned on top of our climbing rock and dubbed “Brenda”. From then on, every time we went swimming, we talked about “going to visit Brenda”.
On the second day, Mom arranged for us to go snorkeling after we finished our school work. We took an Uber to the snorkel shop, which outfitted us with wetsuits, water boots, (no flippers, much to my disappointment), life jackets, and snorkel masks. A staff member transported us to a rocky beach in an old jalopy of a mini van. It was perhaps the most dilapidated rusted out vehicle I’ve ever ridden in. There were no seats in the back, or seat belts… just wood benches and some rust holes in the floor. And, where there would otherwise be the mini van sliding door, there was instead a gaping hole, which the driver urged us not to sit close to as we accelerated onto the road. (By “accelerated”, I mean maxed out at a top speed of maybe 20 mph.)
Luckily the drive to the shore was only about 10 minutes long. When we arrived, my Mom translated the safety briefing and then an instructor guided us through the waves, pointing out fish and taking underwater pictures. He carried a small bag of fish food so the fish would swim up to us. After 20 minutes of swimming as a group, he let us go free to snorkel wherever we wanted in the shallower waters.
At lunchtime, we decided to pack up and take the doorless van back to return our gear. Next, we walked 10 minutes on the road to find lunch at the marina. We weren’t sure what we would find but, we ended up discovering a large seafood market with fresh sashimi and other seafood. I found the market to be disturbing because many of the restaurants had large tanks with sea animals I would not normally associate with dining. These included sea urchins, some kind of small shark, puffer fish, parrot fish, spiny lobsters and super large abalone.
After lunch, we took the bus back to the town, got boba tea (my favorite), and returned to visit “Brenda” and swim some more.
