Photos
Courtesy 
ROC 
Tourism Bureau

I had come to the North Coast National Scenic Area, (NCNSA) not to give English lessons, nor to make headlines, but to spend my weekend lazing at Fulung Resort. On arriving at the NCNSA entrance at Nanya, 20 kilometers south of Keelung, I was greeted by a precarious boulder in the shape of a man's head balancing on a cliff over the road. This is just one of many natural sculptures in Nanya which have been carved by the elements and winds of time.

Leaving Nanya behind, I headed for Lungtung to watch Taiwan's rock climbers crawl up the cliff faces. To get to the plum cliffs, you need to get of the main highway in Lungtung Village and walk along the coastal cliff line, where you arrive at a spectacular vertical amphitheater. Unless you bring your own climbing gear, you have to be content to simply stare in awe, as human spiders crawl up the rock face and then abseil down on their ropes. Deep in my sub-conscience my vertigo was saying, "thank God I didn't bring any ropes."

How anyone finds pleasure in fumbling around 50 meters above jagged rocks to find little crevices into which to stuff their hands, is something that I will never understand. And even more bewildering is the idea of putting their life in the hands of a few man made threads.

Further down the road, lies Yenliao Beach. I paid my NT$50 admission fee and entered the resort. While there is not a great deal to do here, and you wonder why you need to pay anything to look at a beach, I later discovered that the money goes towards keeping the beach clean and to the conservation of the disappearing sand dunes. My reason for stopping at Yenliao was to walk on the sands of time, as it is an important part of Taiwan's history. Japanese invaders first stormed ashore here in the on May 6, in the 21st year of Kuang Hsu's rule. There is an eight meter high monument which was erected in 1975, to commemorate Taiwan's resistance against the invaders.

As I jumped on my scooter and left Yenliao behind, I couldn't help wondering why the monument was built 30 years after the ousting of the Japanese?

After an half hour, I arrived at my destination, Fulung Beach Resort and paid the NT$75 entrance fee. It has been quite a while since I've seen such a well run resort. It has a holiday-camp air to the place which reminded me of my Donkey Derby career at Butlins Holiday Camps when I was a kid. There are no donkey races at Fulung, however, just about everything else is.

For visitors wishing to stay a few days, the resort offers camping equipment for hire. If your love of the out doors doesn't extend to sleeping with the creatures of the night, then bungalows can be hired from NT$1,500 for four persons.

My kind of holiday is not dangling 50 meters in the air, nor plodding up mountain trails, trying to convince myself that this is good for me. My kind of holiday is sun, sand, surf and lots of fun.

I got changed in the resorts changing rooms and went in search of hiring a surf board. The best I could attain though was a body board, as all the boards had been hired out. Undiscouraged, I plunged into the surf to begin my search for the "big one," and I didn't have to wait long before towering waves came crashing over my head.

Fulung Beach attracts many serious surfers who come to ride the waves that come off the Pacific Ocean.

Surfing was never my strong point, I keep falling off for some reason. What I needed was something to hold on to. Wind surfing looked easier, so I hired a rig and sailed around a natural salt water lake created by a huge sand bank at the end of the beach.

After great success with the wind surfer, I headed back to the beach to rest my aching arms, and to work on my tan.

My time had soon run out at Fulung. The night was now closing in, and as the campers fanned their barbecues, I couldn't help but envy them, as I knew that the fun was just beginning.