The Cross-Island Catastrophe (or A Week in the Life of Chris)

Last week was Chinese New Year's. The week started off pretty well... pretty well if you consider losing $5000 in one night of gambling a good night. Not too big a deal though when you remember this is Taiwan money we're talking about here (in translation it's under $200 CAD). I suck at gambling. Jess and I planned to do a tour of Taiwan. We'd start by making our way down to the southern tip of the island, a place called Kenting and proceed to make our way up the East coast to Hualien (the jewel of Taiwan). Did some drinking and dancing till the sun came up, slept a little, and then we set off into the night (it was a late start). Our drive down to Kenting (about a 3 hour trip) was relatively without incident... except somehow my bike fell over and I didn't realize till I was back on the highway that the clutch had completely broken off. Unfortunately it was Chinese New Year, and it was late, and nothing was open. We made it to Kenting anyway (don't ask me how), and in the middle of the city, on the busiest street my bike stopped. Yes, just stopped. I couldn't get it back into neutral so i couldn't roll it. Thankfully Jess was there to give me a hand getting it to the side of the road. Within minutes, a swarm of Taiwanese guys were surrounding my bike and trying to figure out how to solve my problem. Despite Kenting being the big city of the south, it has no repair shop for bikes. After much debate, ripping my clutch to shreds, bending and snapping metal and wires, still no one seemed to sure about anything but as always I put complete faith in them. It didn't work anyway so what choice did I have. Within the hour, I was back on my back. It wasn't pretty but it worked (in a temporary sorta way). The next morning we got it fixed properly by backtracking one town, but before that happened there was a whole night of revelry I've yet to discuss.