After spending 1 day in Kao Siung we flew to Penghu Islands. There are 4 islands which have been connected with bridges. The last bridge is about 1 km long and when we drove on it with a scooter in the evening while Penghu had a Taifoon, it was VERY VERY windy. Felt like my head would blow off or throw my bike in the sea.
Downtown market
Rainbow bridge
Apart from the Taifoon and strongest winds I ever experienced we were lucky with the weather. There was no rain on the 2 days we spent here even though it's rain season now. Some clouds but also nice sunshine and blue skies!
Many houses had corral walls
First thing we did was rent scooters after waking up. Crazy as we are, we took the biggest ones they had and they were REALLY fast. Total new scooters with 125cc engines. It went up to 95km/h in just a few seconds.
We started out "road trip" by driving to the south east part of the main island where we also lived. There were beautiful and huge temples all around the road. Really amazing to watch! The Every 2km you could find a temple like this! Probably had at least 20 on this small island.
Temple
Entrance to the temple, the dragon had glowing red eyes
All temples alike...
We rode for about 10 km until we reached the Fenggui Cave. This was one of the only natural caves I've been too. When tide was high it shot water out of the stones on the beach but on low tide it was easier to go and take photos of it. I say easier because the wind was so strong that I almost tripped over a few times while taking these shots.
Moon landscape
The rock formation here is really like a moon landscape. Looks a lot like the north of Norway on many places. We found some bunkers on the shore, no idea when they've been build but totally deserted now.
After reaching the far southwestern part of the island we drove east towards some other landmarks. A lot of other temples on the way and beautiful scenery by the beach. We covered the whole west coast by doing this and then it was time for island number 2 - Baisha "White Sand".
The bridge that connect these islands was VERY windy, Taifoon! The Baisha island had a very cool Aquarium with all kinds of strange fish and other things from the sea.
Penghu's Loch Ness
Got eaten by a whale-shark
Killer Whale
WEIRD! fish...
Fish twice the size of a person
The last connected island has a bridge which is about 1km long. When driving to the island the wind wasn't that bad but when coming back in the evening the wind was so powerful that is was hard to drive back. Had to keep my head low and drive slowly. At this point Kari's bike was almost out of gas so we were kinda worried that we would get stuck on the road in the storm.
The most stormy place was the Whale Cave on the far north end of the island. We could actually lean against the wind and not trip over or jump up in the air and get thrown to the side. The waves in the sea were over 5 meters high, the power of nature is really something humans cannot control. I'll upload a video of the whale cave later when the Internet is faster.
The Whale Cave in a Taifoon, got my camera soaked while taking these pics
Ship wreck
To play tricks with naval spies the people of Penghu build a giant fake turret up in the mountains just next to the see. I can imagine it looking very real from the sky.
After 8 hours of scooter driving we were so hungry that we bought a whole lobster. On a whole day we only stopped once in a seven eleven for some snacks, too excited to drive around and see stuff. Lobster was only about 20 Euros.
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