We are really enjoying Taiwan. It's a real mix of Asian influences - particularly Chinese and Japanese alongside its own aboriginal beginnings.

The roads in Taipei are a bit mad mainly hecause of all the scooters and the air of immortality which seems to condition the way they approach junctions and other vehicles. Our first ride - 40kms from the airport area to the city Centre to stay with a young cyclist and his family - was the most nail-biting. But we made it and subsequently spent the next 3 days using the metro for transportation.

Taipei is full of both new and old architecture with lots of flashing neon and a 7-11 store on almost every Street corner. The food has been varied - sometimes with strange mixes of salt and sugar on one plate. Steamed dumplings are very popular and the ubiquitous noodle soups but thankfully there's also lots of green vegetables and fruit.

After the first few days in Taipei we headed for the rural areas to its south and east . It was pretty wet riding at times and challenging because of the hills; but despite the lack of visibility the countryside was already beginning to look stunning.There was also a big national holiday at this point and the whole of Taiwan seemed to be on the move so finding accommodation was really difficult.

The ocean road heading southwards was amazing, if testing at times because of the volume of traffic, narrowness of the road and stray dogs. However, the prevailing wind has been from the north which suits us! It also appeared that we were getting the tail end of one of the SE Asian cyclones on one day - the breakers were huge.

Taroko Gorge was full of chinese tour buses which took away somewhat from its beauty, but it was still majestic. Further south there was a bit more choice of roads so we took a quieter one which hugged the hills on one side of the rift valley and gave great views across the paddy fields to the mountains beyond.

We have been staying in homestays/guest houses most of the time with hosts who have a range of English skills from excellent to none at all. The latter has led to some confusion at times but all the Taiwanese we have met have been very friendly. Another challenge has been the signposting as for some reason some of the homestays seem to use different names online to the ones they have on their signs. At one point some friendly local cyclists phoned up the homestay and then cycled a mile out of their way to ensure we got to the door.

Today we hiked the first part of the beautiful Walami Trail and saw several groups of monkeys in the trees, lots of butterflies and the pretty Swinhoe's pheasant which is only seen in Taiwan.

We have another 10 days here before we fly to Thailand so there will be a Taiwan Part 2 blog shortly.