The rain pelted the door window of Car 8 where Annie and I sat on the floor. Our tickets said “No seat,” and with many people heading to Taitung for the last weekend of the Taiwan Hot Air Balloon Festival, we were faced with shifting our bodies in different directions so we gain some semblance of comfort on the four hour journey south.

Stepping off the train, we immediately tried get all the kinks out of our backsides. I had found myself in one of my favorite places in Taiwan once again, where I had been three months earlier for the DMC Memorial Ride.

We hailed a taxi at the train station for 200 NT, after looking at scooter options. Since Annie doesn’t have a scooter license and I haven’t obtained an international drivers license, we were stuck with public transport, which is actually fantastic in Taiwan – just not as fun as a scooter.

Annie and I heard of a duck only restaurant close to Hostel Who Knows – yes, that’s actually the name, and where I stayed two years ago on a hitchhiking trip around Taiwan – and chowed down on some duck blood cake and duck-on-rice. Count me as a fan of both dishes. We settled on some Baobing for dessert at a traditional Taiwanese place which served shaved ice on rice noodles with brown sugar syrup, red bean, and tapioca balls. Variations of these originated in China well over a thousand years ago!

Our alarm clocks were set for 4:20 AM to catch the 4:50 bus to the Luye Highlands for the Hot Air Balloon Festival. With no distractions at the hostel, we got to bed around 10 pm. Our alarms startled some next to us, but we climbed down as quietly as we could from the squeaky metal frames, and scrambled to get to the bus. We were there with a couple minutes to spare.

I’d been to the Balloon Festival two years ago, but Annie hadn’t even though she is Taiwan, born and bred. It’s really a majestic sight, being up in the high valley, and looking out towards the suspended fog and mountain ranges beyond that as the balloons drift out of sight. Annie caught the picture of the day – one of our favorite balloons inspired by the movie ‘Up!’

The heat and humidity in Southern Taiwan is especially brutal, even at 7 AM! We broke out the umbrella like the grandmas in front of us while we lined up for the bus back to Taitung. We caught some more Zs at the hostel, and then were off to our next destination, Dulan, a surfing community about 15 KM north of Taitung.

I remember stopping in Dulan for lunch two years ago, and I thought I had been transported to Big Sur, California with the artsy feel at our restaurant. I had been wanting to get back ever since, and we had finally arrived on our bus from Taitung Station! There are many hipster/artsy communities in Asia, but most of them are like neighborhoods in bigger cities. Dulan is completely separate from any big city – by over 3 hours in fact – and surely is one of the most underrated places in Taiwan, and maybe Asia!

Annie and I checked out the Former Sugar Factory from the Japanese colonial era, which is predictably now an artistic exhibition and hangout.

I bought some mango pineapple jam before going into a hipster bar and trying mead for the first time, alongside a homebrew IPA. I finished each sip of the tangerine vanilla mead with a look on my face that resembled the frowning lady on the bottle, and Annie the same. Although, maybe hers looks like after the first taste of a Warhead.

We took a walk down the half a mile long main strip of Dulan in the intense heat to a solid Vietnamese shop for a banh mi and spring rolls. You better believe we busted out the umbrella again on the way back! I noticed the Japanese colonial-looking Taitung County – Dulan Police Station, but couldn’t find any information on it.

While Annie snoozed, I read some more of Neuromancer, as I had on the train, and it was getting quite interesting before the cliche of a sunset walk on the beach called. We headed down to the beach, about a 10 minute walk from our hostel, WaGaLiGong. The restaurant we stopped at, Cape Cafe, had just stopped serving dinner, so we moved to the backup plan: pizza. Although, I’m not sure if pizza should ever be the backup, especially A Mano, which tastes authentic Italian.

Another semi-early wake up call beckoned, this one 1.5 hours later than the night before at 6 am for our stand up paddleboard tour, so we were early to bed again. Lame, I know.

We decided on a shop called Smile, which actually did make us happy with the quality of their breakfast!

The SUP tour was Annie’s Christmas gift because I thought we’d come to Dulan in January, but Christmas in August is fine right? I’m so glad I didn’t bring my phone out, because I often left the much needed sunscreen and water bottle behind when I fell off the board, even losing my sunglasses for the third time in a couple years thanks to the mighty Pacific Ocean. Overall the tour rocked, and I didn’t get sunburned, which is always a great accomplishment.

After taking much needed showers, we finally got to try the place we wanted to: Dulan Fish and Chips. The shop has a perfect 5 star rating on Google with over 50 reviews, and is run by a young Taiwanese couple and their baby daughter – yeah, the 1 year old baby was showing customers the menu. She’s going places. The quality and taste of the fish and chips are immaculate, and we later polished off their pineapple shaved ice.

Stepping out into some light rain, we made our way to the bus stop at Dulan B, which comes about every 40 minutes. We looked out at the ocean, thinking of our paddle board journey (and my lost sunglasses) as we were winding along the highway. When we got to the train station, Annie introduced me to a fruit I had so much before but had never tried – Buddha’s Head Fruit. It’s an interesting fruit, quite sweet and each small head is almost like a candy corn that you take off and bite, sometimes encountering a seed within, sometimes not.

The rain pelted the window again on our way back to Taipei, this time able to observe the rice paddy fields and lush mountains from a seat. We were fortunate to have some sunny weather during our trip, and have rain only on the train rides there and back. I am reminded of how much I enjoy exploring new places, cultures, and foods.