This past weekend I headed south for the third-annual Spring Scream Music Festival (usually during the early part of April, www.springscream.com). We took the coolest bus I have ever taken, I mean cool as in COLD. I tried to cover my face and ever part of my body for the nearly 6.5 hour bus ride. My beach towel only provided a little bit of comfort from the chill. We arrived around 7:30 AM and had to wait for our hotel (Hotel California, http://www.hotelca.idv.tw/) to let us check-in. The hotel is located above one of the many surfer shops in town and the stairs are located at the back of the store. The hotel was nice with wood floors, linens and toiletries provided, our own room, and cable TV. They do not provide towels for guests though, and during windy nights the windows can keep you up during their constant slamming back and forth. The staff is very accommodating, speak English and can give you good information about Kenting. There is also an available computer to use for last minute research or checking email. The rates were not bad (especially during off-season), all-in-all I would probably stay at this hotel again.
After breakfast, checking in and delicious Thai food we were ready to start wandering around the town. The town was just beginning to wake for the flood of visitors for the two festivals in the area (ours was an indie rock festival and the other was a techno/house music festival). There were street vendors setting up to sell just about everything and anything (clothes, food, beverages, toys, etc.). We gathered our group of 7 and headed to the festival. We managed to catch a ride with a group of Taiwanese heading that way to the festival, well actually we hitched, but almost everyone heading the same way was going.
We purchased 3-day passes to the festival with the expectation that Saturday was the biggest day for music. I enjoyed the town as much, if not more, than the festival itself. The town is very touristy, but nice nonetheless. We spent most of the long weekend on the beach catching some rays (don't worry I had SPF 45 on the entire time and I reapplied regularly). I still burned as usual. I don't know how anyone would dislike sandy beaches, crashing waves, beach volleyball, sunshine, and music. There were large gatherings of people on the beach outside the Cesar Hotel after the music stopped.
On the last day in Kenting (Monday) we rented scooters ($250 NTD, or $8 USD for 4 hours) from a place on Kenting Road. I was so nervous, because I thought my friend had said he had never driven before. So I was like I guess I'll give it a try. As I was pulling out into traffic trying my best to hold 4oo lbs. plus a bike upright, I turned around and said "I'm so nervous". At that point, my friend asked if I preferred he drove, and I asked if he had ever driven and he said plenty of times. Of course I'd prefer not to die on my first attempt, so he drove until I attempted once again and nearly injured my self on a out of the way road. Lesson of the day "don't try to accelerate through sharp turns even when you can't push the bike along". I still got on the bike and rode around. The bike is easy enough to ride when there is nothing to hit. I thoroughly enjoyed the 4 hour ride around the peninsula and highly recommend it to anyone that wants to do it. I would wait however until the concert was over, otherwise you'll be competing with thousands of cars and scooters for road space. The concert was pretty much dead by noon the last day (Sunday), and the town cleared out even faster. Once there was no more money to be made, the vendors left and shops closed up.
In the evening we hired taxis to take us to Zuoying (the HSR station outside of Kaohsiung) to take the train home. Most of the tickets were sold for the next two hours or so, we had to wait until 9:30 pm to catch the 2.5 hour train home.
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