Tong Fon (Dong-Feng) Bikeway

      On Thursday, July 14, I took a bike ride with Mr. Ma ("The Water Man") on the right fork of the Hou-Feng Trail and up the Dong-Feng Trail, past the dam and old train cars.

      There was a beautiful railroad bridge over the vast wash, and it was a shady path most of the way. 

Watch video of Dong-Feng Trail as I pass through the railroad trench and emerge to go over the bridge:
https://www.facebook.com/david.b.temple/videos/10209840503748728/

     The terminus at Dong-Tse, the Hakka town that was cut off and devastated in the 1999 earthquake had no character with the rebuilt cement-tiled buildings in narrow commercial streets, and the morning market was a mess with cars and cycles and people trying to get to get through. 

     Mr. Ma didn't have a definite plan where to eat and I almost lost him in the crowd when he made a right turn out of my sight; I had to send him a Line message to ask where he was. Finally, we settled in a nondescript dumpling noodle place that had been there forty years with notoriety from a KMT office who posed with the owner in a wall photo.

        Mr. Ma, who only brought  and drank a half of one small bottle of water (and one can of beer at lunch) the whole five hour ride, got cramps in his legs halfway back and we stopped for him to rest. His legs must have killed him when he got home. I was fine drinking four large bottles of water. 
     It was a nice ride but a terrible terminus. The Hou-Li Horse Farm at the end of the Hou-Feng trail is a nicer spot to end a ride. The bridge is just as beautiful with the addition of a long, cool tunnel through the mountain.