Day 18

Apr 18th, 2008 by Alice in Daily Marathon

Haikou to Jiadong.

The day began in a relaxed fashion, watching rain fall in Kending where we’d returned one last time after yesterday’s adventures. The woman at our hotel, a round and ever-happy Taiwanese woman, was delighted to see us again and we even got upgraded to a room bigger than the cupboard we had stayed in previously. After a leisurely lunch we head back to Haikou. This turned out to be no small task as the wind that day was so strong that even with two people on a motorbike it felt a take off may be unavoidable. Passing through the towns, we saw that the south-western coast is to onions what the south-eastern coast was to custard apples. Countless shacks along the highway sell pink, brown, red and white onions in differing sizes. I realised why my tomato salad was 95% onion at lunchtime. The fierce wind blew onion skins from the seller’s stalls, the fields and the large piles of onions at the roadside, onto and across the highway. Driving through, the peels danced comically around us as though they were autumnal leaves.

Neil starts to run and finds the elements are up for a fight. Battling against the wind (apparently there was a typhoon in the Philippines), he is blown back through the air with each strong gust, much to the mirth of passing weekend-away drivers and their families. Still on a buzz from yesterday’s achievements, Neil’s taking on the forces of nature with good humour, though with his recent weight reductions it’s hard to see how he wasn’t blown away completely. The wind died down and the day died away uneventfully and without incident. The roads were flat. There wasn’t a bend or hill to negotiate all day. The greatest excitiement came from noticing two caps, twenty kilometres apart, in the road. After yesterday, we were both grateful for that.