Megan and I finally had a chance to get down to Kenting. It took us a while to finally make it down to this part of Taiwan - we've been here over three years - and it was worth it. Well, it was worth it once we figured the place out. It took us a while.


The first morning we wandered out the front door of our beautiful hotel, which faced the ocean, and found that, well, we couldn't really get to the ocean. We walked across a litter-strewn area, and found ourselves up against a fence, with the ocean just beyond. And thought we could not get to the beach, it didn't look all that pretty anyways. Hmmm. We walked along the fence, found more garbage, overgrown grass, broken signs, and other detritus. "This is Kenting.." we thought. Why the heck do so many people rave about it? Megan turned to me and pointed out how she had told my sister Kelley that Kenting was the "Taiwanese Riviera". That might have been a bit premature.

A friend had suggested the way to see Kenting was by scooter. I had figured we'd do that on Saturday, but by 11:30 AM on Friday, we felt we had really seen all there was to see in Kenting. Tacky souvenir shops, dull streets, and a lack of any sign of life.

We found a man sitting in a chair next to a convenience store. Somehow we communicated to him we'd like to rent one of his scooters. He went off, and eventually a woman showed up with a shoebox of keys, a notebook, and a pen. She jotted down some information, took my ARC card, and gave us a set of keys. Insurance? Drivers license? Minor details, apparently. We were all set.

Off we went down the road to put gas in it, as it was bone dry. And then we headed south along the coast. It was a grayish day, and occasional drops of rain fell. We visited many places, drove through a National Park, scootered through some back country, past water buffalo and gorgeous ocean views. Eventually we came back down to the coast, and made our way along the coastline.

We shot lots of pictures of the place, and considering that I left the above paragraphs in draft form, I really should post this whole thing. Too many folks have complained my blog is way out of date. So, without further ado, here are the pictures from Kenting!