Kenting

The drive to Kenting was a wet one.

 But we were promised a lunch at a harbourside group of restaurants offering fresh fish and seafood at low prices. And Thibault delivered here. 40 pieces of sashimi for about £5. Unbeatable value, although certainly not a fancy restaurant. More a cafe with plastic tablecloths. And it was dry.

Back outside, any hopes of snorkelling were rather dashed by the weather, or if you attempted it you would have been dashed against the rocks.

One of the more bizarre features of the area is a site where natural gases escape from the rock and are constantly alight - even in the drizzle. So obviously you have to see them. A boy scout's dream.

We went for (at my insistence) one of the classier resort hotels in Kenting, Caesar's palace, although to be honest once you got past reception it was a little disappointing. The rooms were quite small.

 But the balcony did give a nice view over the hotel pool area.

While Thibault (in lieu of missed karate) and Clarissa hit the hotel gym (also very small) I went for an evening swim in the pool. Which was rather nice, even in low level drizzle. It was certainly warm enough.

Dinner was in the night market, essentially the main street in Kenting becomes lined with food stalls at night and one can browse. Which we did, although frankly things looked rather better than they tasted.

In addition to teh stalls for food there are pop up bars. And at a Jamaican reggae bar (yes, in Taiwan) we had cheap cocktails, and for about he fourth time of the day, including our lunch time restaurant, we came across a French couple (and you notice westerners out here as we rarely came upon more than a handful each day). So we finally decided we ought to speak to them and see if they wanted some company. Luckily they did, and we proceeded to stay out drinking until nearly 5 am, going on into a much more expensive bar, taking in the Portugal v Spain world cup match (on between 2 and 4 am) and playing a game of darts. Well, we were on holiday.

Next day it was wet again.  I mean torrential rain. We had promised to take out our French friends again - they had no car and a hired scooter wouldn't be much fun in these conditions. So we searched for some indoor activity beyond eating and only came up with, ironically, an aquarium. But to be fair a pretty good one.

A particularly nice conceit to wards the end of our walk around the aquarium was a narea mocked up to be a shipwreck.

 

 But a sadder one was a tank with a couple of beluga whales, who did not look happy.

Back to the hotel; to dry out and watch the sun go down.

ten back onto the rainy streets of Kenting.

Next morning a last chance to hang around in the opulent surroundings of the hotel reception area, while Thibault braved the monsoon to bring  the car round for us > as you can see, I wasn't exaggerating about the rain...