#298 I Cycled 1000km Around Taiwan
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Hello everybody and welcome back to the Level Up English podcast. My name is Michael and this is the best place to come to practice the English language, learn about the British accent and culture with me, your host, Michael Lavers.

And I'm very excited to be back with you today because it's been quite a while since I've recorded one of these. I haven't missed a single week of recording because I did record some in advance. But actually, behind the scenes, I've been away for quite some time. So I have just come back from a cycling expedition, a cycling tour around the island of Taiwan.

I was there for, I think it was 17 days altogether, but the actual cycling took place in around 10 or 11 days. And in today's episode, I'm going to walk through some of the things I went through and my experiences there. And I think it's going to be very interesting, hopefully for you, to hear what I went through, both the good and the bad. So I'll be talking a little bit about how I prepared for this kind of trip.

what happened, like day by day, what happened each day.

I'll talk about what went well, the highlights and also what went bad. And trust me, some things went very, very badly. So we'll be talking all about that today. And I might also have time to talk about some of my language experiences there, talking in Chinese as I went around the island. So, yeah, lots to talk about. And I think it could be an interesting one.

I will say as well, as always, if you're listening on audio like Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever, this will be no different to you. You can listen as always. But if you do want to see some visual aspect today, I think this would be a great episode to start with because I will be adding lots of footage that I recorded while cycling around.

into the YouTube version of this podcast. So if you want to see me cycling around in the sun and the rain and going through all these different landscapes while I'm talking today, then you can head over to my YouTube channel, which is called simply the Level Up English Podcast.

And hopefully you can enjoy that there just for this once maybe. And if you're new to the channel, you may not be aware that this is a podcast for English learners from around the world. So because of that, I'll also be sharing some useful phrases and vocabulary in a natural context while I'm talking. So listen carefully and you can learn while we go through this trip review series.

as well. So yes, basically let's start right away with a summary of the trip. It's quite a common trip to do. If you're into cycling and multi-day cycling tours, then cycling around Taiwan is quite a well-known one for various reasons. In total, it depends kind of what route you take and stuff like that, but it's more than 1000 kilometers in total.

And most people do it in somewhere between, you know, 9 and 14 days. That's quite common. Recently, I've got really into the idea of taking challenges, especially fitness challenges, because I think just going and running with no aim can be quite boring, at least for me. I like to have a challenge, whether that is, you know, cycling around an island or, you

running across every street in my neighbourhood. Something a little bit interesting and quirky, kind of means weird, unusual. I think it makes it more fun to reach this goal. So you're having fun, you're setting yourself a challenge and you're hopefully getting fitter in the process.

And of course, cycling around an entire huge island is a huge challenge. And I thought it would be a great way to see the place as well and kind of explore the culture, meet the people. So that was kind of my reasons for taking on this challenge. If we take on a challenge, it kind of means to accept a challenge, to begin or accept something difficult.

So maybe you can think of a challenge that you want to take in your life. It could be a language learning challenge or a physical challenge and wonder, will I take on this challenge? Think about that to yourself. So now I can talk a little bit about how I prepared and planned for the trip, which may be useful if you're thinking about something similar. Maybe I'll inspire you to do something like this.

First of all, I spent a lot of time planning. I actually quite enjoyed it, but it did take a lot of time. So I prepared GPS routes for each day of the trip. I carefully planned the days that I wanted to spend and how long I would go. And it's very helpful that there are pre-existing GPS routes online that you can download for this trip.

So that's very helpful to know. I downloaded them and then I went through some of them and adapted them to my needs. So in some areas, the roads were quite busy and I changed the routes very slightly to go to some smaller, more scenic roads, more beautiful roads. So in some cases, I avoided some busy roads and I opted for, which means I chose, some quieter roads.

I also adapted, I changed the GPS routes depending on my accommodation. So that's another thing that I did. I pre-booked all of my accommodation for the two week trip. And now this I think really depends on your personality. If you like to be more spontaneous, which means plan in the moment or in fact not planning at all.

Or the opposite of spontaneous is planning everything and you know what you're doing. So it really depends what kind of traveller you are. For me, I knew that I would be happier if I pre-booked my accommodation. Because just imagine you're exhausted, you're tired, and then you have to think, oh, I've got to book my hotel for tomorrow. That's another thing to worry about, another stress. It just sounded like a really horrible thing. So I booked them all in advance and I adapted my GPS routes and

So they would start and end at these accommodations. I also made sure to gear up with cycling equipment and things like that. Here's another phrasal verb now. To gear up is to prepare equipment for...

a challenge, a task, a physical thing that you're going to do. So in order to gear up for a cycling tour, you need a lot of stuff, of course, like helmets. I also prepared stuff for sun protection, like I had UV sleeves. Sleeve is what covers your arm. UV stands for ultraviolet. So these are things that cover your skin to stop you getting sunburnt, sun damage.

That was really useful for me because I still got sunburned, but not as bad as it could have been. So things like that I had to prepare. I was using my phone to navigate connected to my bike. So I had to get a big portable charger to keep my phone powered throughout the day. So all these kind of little things I had to gear up with and prepare, which I think it was fine. Like if you have enough time before the trip,

these things naturally pop into your head. I didn't have to worry too much. They just kind of came up and, oh yeah, I need to get this. I need to get this. And I think most things I use, the only thing that I decided not to use was a rain poncho. A rain poncho is something that kind of covers your body and keeps you waterproof. But when you're cycling, I found it's just really not fun to use because, okay, maybe you'll kind of

dry from the rain. But because they're not breathable, that means the air cannot go in and out, you get so sweaty. So it's either do you want to get wet from the rain or wet from sweat? You can't stay dry whatever you do. So I think that rain poncho was maybe the only thing that I decided not to bring in the end. And the final thing that I did was I did some research on food options. I wanted to make sure that

I was not going to be stuck in a place with no food. Luckily, it's a somewhat well-populated island. There weren't many days where I didn't see shops.

There were a few days where I maybe went like three or four hours without seeing a shop in the more rural areas. But even then, it's not the end of the world. There's always going to be some convenience store waiting for me. So I did research a little bit, but I realised it was mostly unnecessary in that area.

And then, of course, the final thing I had to do was prepare for the physical challenge of cycling. I think my average goal was to cycle around 100 kilometers each day, which I felt was a nice one for me. It's not too long, but it's a good challenge. I think it's a good middle ground. I could have gone longer, but that would have maybe damaged my body even more.

So I actually spoke to my good friend, ChatGPT, one of my best friends these days. And ChatGPT devised a plan for me. To devise a plan is like a nice way of saying to make a plan, to design a plan. So they devised a plan for me where I would gradually build up my endurance.

My endurance is how much I can cope with each day. So I started, I think I remember, I started the very first day cycling three kilometers, only three. And I built up really slowly each, not each day, but maybe like three or four times a week I was training. And then I got to 10 kilometers and 20. And when I did my first 30 kilometer cycle, I was thinking, wow, I can't believe I did 30. That's amazing. And I was thinking, wow,

That took me like an hour or something. How am I going to do 100 kilometers? That's going to be impossible. And what's really interesting is how the more I did, the more my standard changed. Right. So 30 used to feel like a lot for me. And now it feels so short. It's like a very short, casual cycle. So it's kind of interesting how what you define as a difficult challenge changes and

the kind of the higher you push yourself, right? And I think I've got more to say on that perhaps later about pushing yourself and it kind of relates to learning a language as well. But perhaps it won't be a surprise to you that it was very difficult to train when we got up to the kind of higher length cycles. So in the few weeks prior to my trip, prior means before,

I did a few longer cycles. I did one 100-kilometer cycle where I cycled around the airport in Bangkok. There's a nice cycle lane there. Three times, which was about 70 kilometers. And then I cycled back home, which was another 30 kilometers. I was really, really exhausted after that. It was really tiring, especially because Bangkok is very hot.

But that was a good training session for me. I also did a couple slightly shorter ones around 70 kilometers where I cycled around the whole city of Bangkok. Really enjoyable, really fun challenge. I want to do more of them in the future, actually. I just took the day off work and just cycled around. And it's a great way to explore the town, your neighborhood, your area.

But I actually only did one cycle that was 100 kilometers or more before the trip, which is not what ChatGPT recommended. And it's not what people online suggested. But it's very difficult because it really takes the entire day. If you want to train that much, you have to give up many days, which wasn't really possible for me.

But in the end, it wasn't a big problem. Before the trip, I was fit, I was healthy, and I felt prepared. And to begin with, it went okay. So let's go through now, day by day, roughly what happened to me. And I'm going to put some nice videos on the screen as well so you can see. But there were 10 days, so I'm going to keep each day fairly short.

So day one, I was leaving Taipei, heading south-east. No, no, no, south-west. Kind of along the coast, but a little bit inland.

And this was a fairly easy day of 84 kilometers, which in hindsight was a good idea. You know, not starting with a really long cycle, 84 kilometers. So this took me five hours and 45 minutes. It was a really, really lovely day, actually. My spirits were high, which means I was positive. My spirits were high.

Because most of the day, even though it was quite urban, was on cycle lanes. It was separate from the road and the traffic. So it was really pleasant to cycle along these lanes. Beautiful scenery around me. Very good weather. Very hot, but nice weather. And I actually went a little bit longer than I planned. And I went around the kind of perimeter of a reservoir, a lake,

and had lunch at this nice vegetarian restaurant there, which was really nice. So that was a good day. And I stayed that night in a town called Hsinchu. It's very hard to pronounce the words I find in Taiwan because in English, they're written very differently than how they are pronounced in Chinese, which I don't know why, but that's very confusing.

But anyway, day two from there was 110 kilometers. And this was the longest cycle I had ever done by that point. But honestly, it was probably my favorite day. It was a fairly long day. It took six hours and 46 minutes. But this was, again, mostly on cycle lanes. There were no cars. It was a lane separate from...

roads. And I was weaving kind of through forests on the path along the coast. So it was beautiful. I could see the sea and

To weave, by the way, W-E-A-V-E, this is kind of to go in and out, to kind of go left and right and you're swerving from one side to the other. So weaving this way and that way along these winding cycle lanes. And it was really enjoyable. I also met some really nice people who I cycled with for a while. I had a chat with them, practising my Chinese.

And I actually arrived to my final spot before 3 p.m. So nice early arrival. And then I went to a nice cafe to relax before going to my hotel. So, yeah, really, really nice day overall. I really like this day.

And then after this, I had a rest day in a city called Changhua. And I think I just planned this because I heard it was a nice city. So I wanted to rest there and explore. And, you know, two days is not much before that. But I felt like because it's right at the beginning, I might need some time to relax.

let my body adjust. So I think a rest day after two days was maybe a good idea in hindsight. Although I still did have to cycle about 35 kilometers to get to my next hotel on my rest day. So it's not exactly a rest.

But anyway, the next day was 85 kilometers, which took less than five hours. In fact, I arrived before 2 p.m. I arrived before 2 p.m. So incredibly early arrival, my earliest on the trip, actually. And the reason I was so fast is because the day was super flat. There was no wind. And it was this is the downside. Now, it was all along the highway.

So this is going to be a pattern in my experiences, but basically many of the roads in Taiwan have different lanes. There's maybe one or two lanes for cars. And then there's another lane for, it's not for cyclists, it's a shared lane between people on motorbikes and bicycles. So it's not the safest kind of bicycle lane, but

But I never really felt in danger. Even though there were motorbikes going past me, they usually gave me enough space and I wasn't too close to any larger vehicles. So I didn't feel too bad. I felt quite safe.

But of course, it's quite boring. It's quite monotonous. The entire day on the highway, I'm just looking at some buildings on the side of the road, but there's really not much in the way of scenery. It wasn't very beautiful. So I was really lucky to have a beautiful day two. Day three, a little bit boring. That wasn't so good. But I did have nice food on this day. I also stopped

Quite a few days, actually. I don't know what we call it in English, actually, but there's something in Chinese called doufu hua, which is like a dessert consisting of tofu and kind of like sweet liquid, maybe like tofu and brown sugar.

And you can put toppings on it like peanuts or red beans or something like that. I had this so much. It's really, really delicious. And I think it's a really nice healthy thing to have on a cycle trip too, I guess, because it's got some sugar to give you some energy, but also high in protein and stuff like that. And also very cheap. You can see it everywhere. So I had this dessert almost every day without fail. It was really, really nice thing to have.

kind of motivate myself to get to that next dessert shop. I wish we had more of that in Europe as well. Anyway, day four was when I started to lose my optimism, my positivity. I cycled another 110 kilometers. It took six hours, but it was another day pretty much all on highways. It was flat. It was easy to move on, to get going quickly, of course.

but just not so interesting. But yeah, I continued to cycle south. I skirted around the city of Tainan. To skirt around is kind of like to go around the outskirts. So you notice that word skirt here, kind of the edge of something. So skirt around is to go around the edge of something, usually a town or village or city.

So I avoided the urban areas, went around the outside and I stayed the night in a smaller town. Really nice place, actually. And it was a really nice guest house with really friendly staff. And that was I think I had the best sleep of my entire trip in that guest house. So that was a nice experience.

On day five, this was my halfway point in the trip, my last day on the west side of the island, I cycled 109 kilometers in six hours and 40 minutes.

Again, I should probably look this up in Chinese, but it's hard to pronounce these names in English. But I think this city is like Gaoxiang or something. Again, it's spelled really weirdly in English. But this is quite a big city in the southwest.

I cycled through that city in the morning. I made a last minute decision. Rather than going around the city, I would go through the city. And it was quite interesting just to see the city, experience a new place. I actually went during the morning rush hour, which was quite annoying.

very busy and lots and lots of traffic lights. So I was, here we could say I was thwarted by the traffic lights. Thwarted is a hard word to pronounce and understand, but it kind of means something makes your journey experience more difficult.

So the traffic lights made my trip more difficult. I was thwarted by the traffic lights. That's T-H-W-A-R-T-E-D.

So that was slow going at the beginning, but eventually I made it out of the urban areas and I made it to a nice lunch spot in another town where I stayed in a local kind of restaurant where, you know, you have these plastic chairs on the side of the road where I had lunch there. And the ladies, the owners of that shop were chatting to me all in Chinese and they

I think they were using a lot of local Taiwanese kind of dialectal words and that made it so difficult to me. They were saying stuff like, what are you saying? And I would have to use my dictionary to look it up. And I realised that these were kind of Taiwanese local words. They were not words that your average Mandarin speaker would know. So that was kind of very challenging, but it was quite nice that I could communicate with them more.

in a basic way in Chinese. But interestingly, I found that older people generally were not impressed if you could speak Chinese. Older people would speak to me in Chinese and just expect me to understand and respond. And there was no reaction at all. Of course, I'm not expecting a reaction.

But it was interesting that there was just an expectation that foreigners will speak Chinese. Maybe it's because they couldn't speak English. I don't know. But then with younger people, I noticed there was more of a reaction. Younger people would more often comment like, oh, you speak Chinese or, oh, your Chinese is good or something like that. Kind of supporting me or motivating me in some way.

younger people would often slow down their speech as well. I could tell they were trying to make themselves more understandable to me. Whereas older people, I think this is normal in any country, right? The older people, they just kind of spoke naturally very fast. And it led to many, many awkward situations where I would be like, I don't know.

But yeah, that was one interesting thing I noticed. And I imagine you might, some of you may have felt the same, you know, maybe when you've come to England before, that's a common thing. Anyway, day six, this is where things get really bad. This was 117 kilometers. I think to this day, the longest I have ever been on a bicycle in one day.

And I was cycling for eight hours and 40 minutes. This was, I wrote down here, the hardest physical challenge of my life. To be honest, I was really, really miserable on this day.

It was a really, really low point of the trip. And this is where the trip made a turn for the worse. That's a good expression there, good collocation, where someone's health or an experience you're having suddenly changes from positive to negative.

my trip made a turn for the worse. So first of all, I cycled up 1,300 meters in altitude. I was going uphill in that day, which is quite high. You know, I'm cycling up a kilometer, lots and lots of uphills. And it started out very steep in the day. And I was going through jungles, which kind of was interesting to see. There were monkeys everywhere on the side of the road.

which was kind of fun to cycle past all the monkeys. But honestly, I just felt too horrible to really care. Another thing that I did find interesting, though, was it was a very kind of local, I don't know if you would say tribal area. I think there's like different tribes in Taiwan. So there was a, maybe I can talk about this a bit later, but I learned a lot about the history of Taiwan and the

indigenous people there, which are the people that lived there for much longer. They've lived there for thousands of years. And these people, they look different from other people on the island. I don't want to say anything wrong, which is why I'm hesitating because I don't know much about it, only what I learnt there.

But yeah, what I did learn is that there's a lot of different cultures that have inhabited Taiwan for a long time. And they speak different languages that are very different to Mandarin that I have no idea what they're saying, of course. And I was cycling through these jungle areas, seeing local villages and villages.

kind of statues and stuff to these tribal areas. And that was a really interesting cultural experience. But again, I was feeling horrible. So I tried to appreciate it, but it was challenging.

And here's the reason why it was so horrible. Most of the day was cycling up the coast. So once I left the jungle, I was cycling up the east coast of the island. It's just on the coast. It's really close to the ocean.

And this is when I realised, I actually realised later that day that a typhoon was approaching. We'll come back to this typhoon later, but a big, big storm. I think at this moment it was in the Philippines, quite far away. But even though the typhoon might be far away, it's still affecting the weather patterns in a huge area. So I think because of that typhoon, the wind was stronger than usual.

So the wind was really pushing me back. We call it a headwind. Headwind is when the wind is going into you, against you. So there was a really strong headwind and heavy rain all day. I was soaking wet. I was cold. And because of the wind, I could barely go any faster than a walking pace. I think my...

maybe not my average, but my average for that section was about eight kilometers an hour. It was so, so slow. And there were a few areas where I could go downhill, but because the wind was so strong, I didn't really move. I would just stay still going downhill. So I had to pedal really hard, even just to go down. It was

physically and mentally a really really challenging day and I think there was one point in particular I remember just I'd been through so much I had endured so much to endure is to go through a difficult experience I'd endured so much and I looked at my phone and I still had 50 kilometers to go

And I just felt this is the worst day of my life. It's really horrible. And every day since that day, I just feel so grateful that I am not in that place anymore. So that was a really horrible day. I finally reached my Airbnb after dark. And that last few kilometers, I was just...

I was going so slow and I could have collapsed at any minute. I felt really weak, really dizzy and lightheaded. There were really no, I mean, I didn't really have time to stop for food as well because I was really nervous about getting there after dark because the company where I rented my bike from, the lights on my bike didn't really work properly. At least the front light didn't. So that was another annoying thing.

So I finally reached the Airbnb at probably about 6pm. It was already fully dark by then and I just collapsed. I really couldn't believe that I made it. It always felt like a dream. I can't believe that I made it through that day. And luckily, I had the foresight. Foresight is like thinking about something in advance, like fore from before, sight from like insight, seeing something.

I had the foresight, the idea to book a rest day here, which was really smart of me. So that entire next day, I just spent the whole day on my phone, on the sofa, in bed. I really didn't do anything. I just wanted to rest as much as I could. And it's kind of a shame that I couldn't explore. But also it was raining all day. It was really miserable. So that was a shame. So, yes, that was that. And then day seven after my rest day, I

was 92 kilometers and it was 5 hours and 26 minutes. I felt quite despondent on this day, quite despondent. Despondent is a kind of advanced word which means low spirits. I was in high spirits on day two, now I was in low spirits because I lost my hope, my motivation. I was despondent.

And mostly this was because of the heavy rain for most of the day. I started out about 7 a.m. maybe or 6.30. I wanted to get really early, a really early start so I could take my time today and not rush like I did the day, the previous day. But it's, you know, it's really horrible waking up where it's not super bright and it's

It's heavy rain and you get soaking wet the moment you set off, the moment you leave your place. So that was horrible, getting soaking wet right at the beginning. I did get some good photos throughout the day when the rain had a break. There were a couple of moments where the rain would stop and I got some nice photos, but even then I was still soaking wet and it wasn't dry for long enough for me to dry off and feel comfortable. So yeah,

The photos may look nice, but I wasn't really enjoying it so much. And I think the worst part for me is this was the day that I had been looking forward to the most, right? So this was day seven and I had heard, using past perfect tense, I had heard that this was one of the most beautiful days with the beautiful scenery and everything.

I could see that. I could see that the scenery was beautiful, but I just couldn't really enjoy it in the bad weather, cold and wet. And the fact that I had got so unlucky and it was raining all day really made me feel upset. I really felt bad about that. Something that I was so excited for, I was actually quite disappointing. So that was a shame. Okay, almost at the end now, although this is where things start to get very bad for me.

So the next day, day eight was 105 kilometers, which I completed in under six hours. And I started the day feeling again, very miserable. And I just felt quite sorry for myself. If you feel sorry for yourself, this phrase means that you're just kind of feeling like you're in a really bad situation. You feel like you want to cry almost that kind of

situation. Imagine in the morning again, putting on my wet shoes because they couldn't dry overnight. They were still wet from the day before. Putting on wet shoes and getting soaked again at 7am is just a horrible way to start the day. So I cycled for 40 kilometres and after that, the sun came out and my mood lifted a bit. My cycling...

uh, clothing material. It dries very quickly. So after 30 minutes of sun, I was kind of mostly dry. So that's one benefit. So I was kind of hopeful that, okay, maybe the rain will stop and I'm going to have a nice end to my trip. That will be nice, right? Almost as if the universe was trying to punish me. Uh, a few minutes after the sun came out,

I had a strong, sharp pain in my thigh, in my quad muscle, we can say, my quads. So my leg really started to hurt and I pushed on to the hotel. But that last part of the day was quite challenging. I wasn't sure. I don't think I could have gone any further. I went to my limit that day with the pain.

But anyway, that night I stayed at a really nice hotel at the kind of at the mouth. Mouth is another word for entrance at the mouth of Taroko Gorge, Taroko Gorge, a very famous, beautiful gorge in Taiwan, which is closed right now because of the earthquake that happened earlier in the year. So I didn't see it, but maybe I'll see it next time.

But yeah, beautiful, really nice hotel right there. I was welcomed very kindly by a man who told me he was, again, indigenous. I don't know how you would say it, local, local man. So he is not from like the Han Chinese. What's the word? He's not from that area.

I can't think of the word. That's annoying. But yeah, he's kind of a native Taiwanese islander, I guess you could say. I'm not really using my words well at this part. But anyway, he was really nice and he told me a lot about the history and the culture. He told me about the language that he uses with his family, which he gave me an example of. It sounds very interesting. He even sung me a song in their local language, which was

A little bit awkward. I don't know how to respond when people sing to me, but that was a very unique and memorable experience to go to a hotel, a guest house. He told me a little bit about the history, about how the island used to be inhabited by these kind of people. And then the Han people came, I think 300 years ago, he said. And now that is mostly the people who inhabit the island now.

Kind of reminded me of the history of the UK as well, of the Celtic people. Sounds very similar to me. It was a nice place and there was also some really cute cats who I spent some time with there. Unfortunately, really sadly, the cats were missing some legs and arms and one only had one eye. And I asked why and the owner said they were attacked by monkeys in the past, which was really, really sad. I really hope they're going to be okay from now on.

But they were sweet cats though. They're really nice.

So it was a nice end to day eight. I was really, again, I was still hopeful for the next day, although I was very apprehensive. Apprehensive is kind of nervous, uneasy feeling when something scary might happen. Because day nine is a day that some people skip. You know, I did a lot of research on this trip and many people will take the train on day nine and

because this is a section that can get quite scary because you're cycling alongside cars and trucks on a busy highway. So I decided not to do that because I want to be brave and I'm kind of a completionist, which means I like to do things to 100%. I don't want to skip anything. So I did it and I cycled 108 kilometers. It took six hours and 45 minutes.

But this was another contender, another possible day for the worst day of the trip. And maybe even my life. When I think about worst days of my life, this is definitely one of the top ones. So, yeah, as I said, many people dread this day because you have to cycle through long tunnels alongside trucks and cars and you don't get much room to cycle there.

So to dread that word, if you dread something, it's like you really don't want to do it. You're really, really not looking forward to it. I was dreading this day. Maybe that's wrong, but some people dread this day. I was apprehensive, which is not as strong as dread.

I will say the scenery in some areas was amazing. I was cycling along the coast, huge cliffs to my right with beautiful, bright, like turquoise blue sea, very clear, beautiful coloured sea, ocean down the cliffs to my right. So I could imagine that could be really beautiful if you were not in pain and if the weather was sunny.

Most of the day, the weather was quite wet again, which sucked. It really was horrible.

And yeah, again, even worse than that was my leg, my left leg, my left thigh, which is the top of your leg, was in really intense pain. It was really, really challenging. So I actually cycled the entire day only using my right leg. And you can imagine how hard that is, right? Of course, you need both legs to weigh down the pedals.

So my left leg, I just left it with gravity. You know, I pushed down with my right leg on the pedal and then my left leg would fall with gravity to push the pedal down. But I wasn't using the muscles in my left leg. So, of course, that did help my leg a bit. But imagine just cycling an entire day only using one leg. It was really challenging. Every single pedal was hard.

an effort. It was a pain to do that. And, you know, towards the end of the day, I was in so much pain that I was kind of grunting with each cycle, which is kind of like that noise you make, like, when you're trying to deal with pain, like it was really hard to not do that.

I eventually made it to my Airbnb, which was a very weird place. It was a nice Airbnb surrounded by rice paddies and water north of the city of Yilan, which is on the kind of the northeast coast area of Taiwan.

And it was a very interesting, unique era. I've never seen anything like that before. You know, rice paddies that don't exist in Europe. So it's a very unique experience for me. And my host greeted me in Chinese and I was just so exhausted. I had the worst day of my life. I just couldn't respond. I couldn't say anything. And it was very awkward, actually, because he was talking to me in Chinese and I just said like, hello and bye.

I don't know, I almost just didn't hear him. I just was so focused on myself and my pain that I just wasn't even listening. He was talking to me and it was really awkward. I didn't really respond. I just kind of said, yeah, I'm cycling around Taiwan and yeah, I'm very tired. I'm sorry, I'm very tired. And then that was it. And he showed me everything in the Airbnb. Anyway, I had a good sleep there. And yet luckily, once again, I had the foresight to book a rest day.

I think this is a good tip if you're thinking about doing a similar cycling tour, and that is to book more rest days at the end of the trip, towards the end of the trip. Because imagine if you used up all of your rest days at the beginning, then you have no more days at the end, which means you have to cycle every day.

But for example, I had some days left at the end, which means if I was really exhausted, I could have spent another day resting and it wouldn't have been a big problem. So the more days you have at the end of your trip, the kind of safer it is in some sense.

I had another rest day again. I walked to the shop and got some food. Apart from that, I spent the whole day on the sofa. It's kind of crazy how the day went by so quickly. I just didn't do anything apart from go on my phone and the day went by very quick. So that was interesting. Okay, the final day now. Got to the final day. Day 10. Day 10.

It was, I mean, I was quite excited for this day. I had been excited for this day for a couple of reasons. I was planning to cycle by a place called Shufan, something like that. And this is a place that I had been to before many years ago that I have fond memories of. And it's a very popular kind of tourist place where you go and release floating lanterns into the sky and

along the train tracks maybe you've seen pictures of it before and i thought it would be nice to cycle by here and relive those memories but also see some nice scenery along the way and hopefully end my trip in a positive way but that's just not what happened it's not what happened it didn't pan out as i expected

To pan out this expression, this phrasal verb, is to turn out, to end up. Some more phrasal verbs that are similar. If something just didn't go as you expected, you can say it didn't pan out. It didn't pan out. So this excitement, this day, didn't pan out as I expected.

First, the typhoon, which again was the biggest typhoon that Taiwan had experienced in 30 years, in my whole life, basically. And this was fast approaching the island and the weather and the wind was worsening. It was getting worse. So that was one bad thing that made it challenging. I was just, it just kind of felt ridiculous. I was cycling in really strong winds and rain all

I just felt really silly. It was not safe and suitable weather to be cycling in. Secondly, of course, my left leg was in unbearable pain despite my rest day. It started out feeling like, okay, maybe this is okay. I cycled for 10 minutes, but then the pain very quickly returned. It

It was just unbearable. Like every single cycle, I was screaming with pain. It was really horrible. And it was just so tough because it was my last day. I just wanted to get there and complete my challenge. You know, many days before, I had already given up on enjoying the trip. After about day five, it was not about enjoying. It was just about surviving. Right. That was my main goal.

But even today, even this final day, keeping my left leg relaxed and not using it, it was it was not enough. It still hurt too much. Just the movement of the up and down on the on the pedal. So I had my first break in a town called Fulong, something like that.

Soaking wet, very cold, and I could barely walk. I was like stumbling in. I wonder what the staff thought about me. I must have looked like such a mess. One benefit, by the way, of Taiwan and many Asian countries is convenience stores like 7-Eleven and Family Mart. I really love them.

In fact, they're usually much better in Taiwan and Japan, even compared to Thailand, because they have a lot more stuff there. They have a nice menu where you can order coffee, hot drinks, hot food as well sometimes. And there's often a seating area, which is very different from, you know, we might call them corner shops or something like that in the UK. We don't have that kind of stuff in the UK. So it was really nice just to go in there, buy cheap coffee, warm my hands up,

and not worry about getting the floor wet because they're not that clean anyway, these convenience stores. So I kind of sat in there and thought about what I'm going to do. I thought realistically, can I complete this day? And I just thought about, and I just thought, I think there's really no way that I can complete it. Maybe I could like limp my way for the rest of the day and I'll arrive to my accommodation at midnight or something.

but it's just not enjoyable. I'm not going to decide to do that and think it's a good decision. So there just happened to be a train station right next to that 7-Eleven in that town. And I went to ask if I could take my bike on the train and they said yes. And it was a very cheap ticket to my hotel. So I decided kind of

reluctantly in some way, but I decided to get the train back. So I did not cycle the final 50 kilometers of the trip.

But honestly, I did not regret it even once. I don't think I would have been able to. I think I would have collapsed somewhere, something even worse maybe. So I'm really glad I did take the train. And it was a kind of weird way to end the trip because it wasn't like this big triumphant, like, yes, I passed the finish line. I did it. You know, I didn't finish the final 50 kilometres.

However, I still consider the trip a completion. I still got around the island and in the grand scheme of things, 50 kilometers out of over a thousand is really not that much. It's not much. And, you know, what I might do in the future just to again, complete it, feel that sense of completion is I might return one day and just cycle that final day again in good weather. That might be a good thing to do. But yeah,

Yeah, I just think it just really wasn't worth it to permanently damage my health or my body just to finish that day. It didn't seem to make any sense to me. So I'm sure you will agree that that was the right decision. So I ended up cycling 36 kilometers on the final day, which took about two hours, which really shouldn't take that long to cycle 36 kilometers. Yeah.

Anyway, this is a very long episode, but I knew it would be. I've got a lot to talk about and lots of nice videos to show you as well, which hopefully you're enjoying. But I'm just going to kind of finish up now and talk about some things that went well. So again, if you're thinking about doing something similar, this might be a good thing for you to hear or maybe just interesting to hear.

So one thing is having a buffer at the beginning and the end was a great idea. In this context, a buffer is kind of like just some space, a cushion, a shield or something in order to help avoid problems, I suppose.

So before my trip, I had two buffer days and at the end I had another two, both staying in Taipei. So the first two days I could just prepare for the trip. I could pick up my rental bike. I could get some food and stuff like that. Just mentally prepare as well. The final two days as a buffer is maybe not so necessary, but I think it's very important to have just in case. Because again,

If something went wrong on the final day and I couldn't make it for some reason, maybe I needed two days to get back. I had no pressure because my flight home wasn't for a couple of days. So there's some benefits there. Adding rest days, of course, is a great idea. I think the rest days really helped me. I kind of wish I had more now, but that was good.

Another thing that went well was picking up the bicycle the day before I needed it. I met another guy at the rental shop who was a European guy from somewhere. And he was picking up the bike at about 2 p.m. And he was doing the first day immediately, which I guess he might have made it around maybe 7 p.m. I'm not sure. But that just sounds really horrible to me. Leaving at 2 p.m. to cycle around.

maybe 90 kilometers is just not very fun. I don't know how he did. I'm quite curious, actually. But I picked my bike up and I left it at my hotel overnight and I started early the next morning, which I think was very smart. Other things, I think my fitness, my preparation mentally and physically really helped me on the trip. Also, waking up early was a really good idea. You know, usually I wake up around 6 a.m. or something like that just to start really early and

That gave me less pressure because I didn't feel so rushed to get there before five when it started to get dark. So that was good.

Having the GPS was a huge thing for me. Maybe some people don't like to prepare, but for me, having the map on my phone showing where I should go was so helpful because I didn't have to worry, should I go left or right? Have I gone the wrong way? I don't think I ever got lost, actually. I always knew where I was going, which was super, super helpful, having that GPS on my phone. I also made sure that most of my accommodation had a washing machine, which was great, but

And actually, this links to one of the things that didn't go well, a very small thing. But I think I didn't need to bring everything that I did. I brought two cycling tops, two cycling shirts. And

I only used one for the whole trip because every night I would wash the shirt and by morning it would be dry. So I didn't need to have two. I didn't need to bring two. So I think in the future, I might consider just bringing one and just washing every night. And there were other things I didn't need. Like I brought maybe four pairs of socks, but I think I only wore like two on the whole trip because again, I was wearing one and then washing it, wearing one, washing it. So that's

You actually don't need many clothes if you're going to be washing most nights. And yeah, the final thing that I was quite proud of is my bag only weighed three kilograms. Luckily, the bike rental company did provide a lot of equipment like the helmet and the bicycle pump and stuff like that.

So I didn't need to bring a lot of that stuff. But yeah, in terms of like my bag and my little bit of food, clothing, three kilograms, it was super light. And I think I could have made it even lighter, as I said. So that was a nice benefit. And of course, the lighter your bike is, the easier it's going to be. So that definitely helped me. But yeah, things that didn't go so well. Of course, I had problems. Well, not of course, I haven't told you yet.

I had problems with my bike seat. This was really annoying and this might have led to the pain in my legs. Every now and then, the bike seat would slowly slide down and it would be too low, causing discomfort for my legs. And it was really, really annoying. I didn't really know what to do because, you know, of course I could complain to the company, but what are they going to do? They're not going to send me a new bike halfway through, right?

That is just really annoying. I don't know. I didn't quite know how to feel about that. Of course, the pain in my leg wasn't good. That didn't go well. Not having enough rest days to recover. I don't know if more days would have helped, to be honest. But...

Honestly, one of the worst things I think was just the bad weather and the typhoon. It really made the cycling 50 times harder than it needed to be. You know, I can cycle up hills. I can cycle more than 100 kilometers. Yeah, it's difficult, but I can do it. But with the wind and the rain, it's just so much harder. And I suspect that if it had not been windy...

I probably wouldn't have been injured I think what really hurt my legs was cycling against the wind because there was no moment where I could kind of relax and just coast coast is where you're kind of going without pedaling I couldn't coast I was pushing for every second of the day and I think that's what killed my legs and maybe the seat as well in in conjunction with that

So yeah, that was a shame. I think this might end up being one of my longer solo episodes, but I hope you don't mind. If you're still listening to this, then thank you so much for sticking around. I will say just a little bit about my language ability now. Very mixed. I felt very happy, first of all, that I could communicate very basic things in Chinese, just ordering a coffee and

understanding basic stuff was really, really nice. It felt quite good that I could do that in Chinese. Learning little things was quite fun. Having that kind of learning curious mindset we spoke about before. I think that's great. So there was one moment, for example, where this staff in a restaurant kept saying kind of,

like, you me chai, you me chai. I was like, what? What are you saying? I just don't understand. And then I realised after she had left that she was pointing to corn, like sweet corn tea. And I was like, oh, okay. Now, probably when I hear that again, I'll know what it means. But I guess...

I just had no idea that she was talking about corn tea because this is just not a thing that exists in, you know, in the Western world. We don't have tea that is sweet corn flavoured. So I knew the words for corn and tea, but I didn't know that that was really a thing that people drank. So things like that I found quite interesting and it was kind of fun to learn as I was going through.

However, I did feel quite disappointed sometimes where I really couldn't say quite basic things. I forgot very simple words and phrases and

And maybe you can relate to this. I had the feeling like I could only access, you know, 5% of the knowledge in my brain. I've been learning Chinese for years. I've got all this knowledge in my brain, but for some reason I couldn't bring it to my mouth. I couldn't use it, which is really frustrating. I suppose one way that I was making myself feel better for that was

is I was kind of reminding myself like, Michael, you're exhausted. You're really tired. Don't be too hard on yourself. Even in English, you can't really talk that well right now. You're so tired, your language brain is not working. So I think that made me feel a little bit better. I shouldn't be too hard on myself.

But overall, I ended feeling more motivated to improve my Chinese and next time be even better. It's possible for all of us. I know I can do it. So I am motivated, even though it might be a challenge.

So I think the lesson there is not to be too hard on myself because, you know, maybe I'm just not in the mood to have a conversation. I think especially if we're more introverted and less outgoing, it's easy as language learners to put a lot of pressure on us to always be in a good conversational mood.

But if you're not that way in your native language, why are you putting that pressure on yourself in another language? And that's one realisation that I had that sometimes I'm just not in the mood to talk and that's going to make it harder. So I should understand that as well. So finally, would I recommend this trip to others? Would I recommend you to cycle around Taiwan? My summary is basically

Probably not, honestly. Of course, I was incredibly unlucky with the weather. I went at the time of year that has statistically the lowest rainfall in the year, and it rained almost every day. It was so horrible. In fact, I'm still so heartbroken about it when I think about all the hours I spent preparing and the weeks and weeks that I was excited for that trip.

And just to be ruined by those few things, I feel really heartbroken about that. So I'm trying to imagine if the weather had been good, would I recommend it? And in that case, maybe I would recommend it if your expectations are in the right place. It's kind of marketed in a very sneaky way that you often hear, oh, it's the longest cycle trail in the world or something like that. And

I was kind of naively thinking, oh, it's going to be amazing just cycling around beautiful trails. But 90% of the whole trip is on the side of a highway. Yes, you're usually not sharing the road with a car. You might be sharing with bikes, but I just think that's not really enjoyable cycling. You want some variety. You want cycle lanes, roads, different kind of types of roads, I think.

But just cycling along a busy highway with loud trucks going by all the time is not enjoyable. It's just not that fun. If you're looking to take on a cycling challenge, maybe this could be a good one for you. If you're...

you know, not a beginner, but also not an expert. Somewhere in the middle, this could be a great one for you. I will say it was great to learn more about Taiwan and experience a lot of the island. I kind of feel like I have a good sense of what the island is like now, which is really cool. And yeah, maybe you could try it, but I just think you need to have the right expectation. You know, don't expect it's going to be

Always beautiful, always on a cycle lane. If you expect lots of highways, then you might enjoy it. Okay. But of course, yeah, just to say once more, my experience is definitely affected by the weather that I had there. Okay.

Well, let's just bring this super long episode to a close. I actually have more to say on this topic, but I'm going to leave it until the next episode where I'm going to be talking about some things that I was thinking about on my long cycling trip. Just some random stuff that I was thinking about. So that'll be next time.

But let's just say a quick thank you to Moha Max 75. This is on Apple Podcasts. They said your podcast has massively improved my listening skills. I used to understand only about 60 percent of each episode, especially since the British accent was unfamiliar to me.

I would replay episodes several times for deep learning. But now, after regularly listening to the podcast, my understanding has jumped to 90 to 95%. Even new words are easier to pick up from context thanks to your explanations. You've made a huge difference in my learning journey. Keep up the great work.

Wow, what a nice review. That's amazing to hear that success story, Max or Moha Max. So thank you so much. That's super nice to hear. Appreciate the five star review and glad that you're seeing some quick improvements in your listening ability. That's really makes me happy to hear that. So thank you. I do have a few audio comments, but I think I'll leave them for a shorter episode. So maybe next time.

Let's just end with a quote from Winston Churchill about failing or success. He said, This reminds me of my courage and of continuing on my cycling trip. So it's a good one. I like that quote.

If you do want to hear more from me, private podcast episodes and more contents like group classes and stuff, don't forget to check out Level Up English Members on the website. There's a link in the podcast description. But yeah, let's leave it there. Thank you so much for watching or listening. Hope you've enjoyed this one and I'll see you in the next one. If you did make it to the end, by the way, let me know. If you made it to this point, just tell me. That'd be cool.

Use our secret code word bananas. If you write banana in the comment, I'll know that you made it to the end. Okay, bye. Bye for now.

Thanks for listening.