I knew there would be surf in Taiwan but when I found it I couldn't believe how good it could be. The photos below don't really show it at its best because I was too busy surfing it before the onshore wind came up. I managed to catch Ta-Hsi (pronounced Dar-shee, thank Wade Giles romanisation method for the twisted spelling) at about 5 to 6 feet. The train to Ta-Hsi leaves from Taipei Main Station and costs NT$104 (about AUD$6.50/US$3.25) and takes about 90 minutes. Unfortunately Ta-Hsi is a small station and therefore the trains that stop there are infrequent. That means a long wait between them. If you want to get there early during the week you need to catch the 4.27am train to get there at 6am.

Looking south over Ta-Hsi Beach	Ta-Hsi is what I call a "swell magnet". It is one of those beaches that are always that critcal foot or two bigger than the rest. Honestly, though after I found this beach I didn't really look at any others since I didn't have a car. On my first trip I hired a car and drove only as far as Fu-Lung Beach which is 2 stations back towards Taipei. I surfed Ta-Hsi for a few days and found it consistently had a wave and even at 2 feet was surfable, not exactly super fun, but still OK. The days I surfed it there seemed to be 3 predominant breaks, a peak in the centre with a left and a right, although the left could close out if it joined up with the right hander that came off the southern point. Further north there was a righthander which I called "Station Right".
Ta-Hsi railway station	As you can see from this shot of the station, the station is about 600 to 800 metres north of the beach. The rail line runs along the narrow coastal strip between the shoreline and the hills. After Fu-Lung Beach the rail line hugs the coastline, at least for the next 2 stations which are Ta-Li and then Ta-Hsi, so you can get an idea of swell size and conditions along the rest of the coastline. I have yet to go to Hualien which is a major tourist point on the north east coast where there are some more beaches that, on the map, look to have some wave potential. I'll check them out in a future trip. Fu-Lung though, looks like a place to keep in mind when the swell gets really big. The waves were only about a foot when I saw it but it had potential. It looked like the right handers would probably wind off all the way down the beach. Fu-Lung is the next beach to the north. Ta-Li is just rocky coastline with no beach.
One of the local beauties, Jenny, my fiance	The trains come roughly every 2 hours at Ta-Hsi so if the surf's crap you have a bit of waiting time on your hands. On one particuar day, I knew the swell was dropping, so I planned to go to Ta-Hsi and if it was flat I was going to walk back to Fu-Lung. I tried walking back to Fu-Lung Beach but after about 3 hours I gave up. Either the rail line takes a short cut and the road has a few extra kilometres because it winds back and forth around each headland or it is just plain longer than it looks. The day I tried this the surf was falt so I thought I would go for a nice walk along the coastline. It was pretty picturesque and worth doing. Although it was quite hot when I did it and so you can expect to perspire heavily. It made me a bit of an instant celebrity with the local road workers who continually waved and tooted their truck's horns as they drove back and forth. Getting to Ta-Li seemed to take longer than expected, perhaps nearly 2 hours. Anyway after passi Ta-Li about 30 minutes later I looked at a sign that looked like it indicated Fu-Lung was another 18 kilometres! I gave up at this point because that would have meant missing the train I planned on catching and getting home too late.
Station Right: some good lines when offshore	So I turned around and walked back to Ta-Li. It was like a defeat or a DNF of sorts even my new found friends in the road gangs seemed to give nods of expectation upon my return. The local surf shops will hire a surfboard to you. The going rate seems to around NT$400 per day, which was around AUD$25 at the time, the echange rate has improved since then. The surfboards on offer vary in their condition and design dependant on what is available. Mostly though it seems that thare just aren't too many surfers here. There only seems to be a handfull of local surfers and their level of surfing is not very advanced. They can ride waves but they certainly don't seem to perform any aggressive manouvres on the waves.
waiting for the train, they don't stop often at DaShi	When I first tried to hire a surfboard, the day it was about 5 to 6 feet, I was told by the surf shop owner that it was very rough and the current was strong. I laughed and proceeded to tell her that I had surfed waves twice that size and more and I had surfed in Hawaii. Upon seeing I was insistent the shop owner asked me a few questions about where I came from and so I told her I came from Sydney. Once she cottoned on the fact that I came from Australia she changed her tack and said "very good waves in Australia!" After all, just about every bit of merchandise in the shop was Australian product. Sounds like negligence liability hysteria has also paid a visit here too! Anyway the board I hired was a 6'4" rounded square tail. I took it out and threw it round a bit in what were some fun waves. Even though quite few were closing out I managed to pick off a few long rights that didn't.
across the road from the station	I put together a couple of good rides with a couple of re-entries and some cutbacks. When I got out of the water I noticed a few heads checking me out! Obviously they hadn't seen this style of surfing all that often. Just imagine I'd pulled an aerial! Or even a floater. Jenny had told me that while I was actually on the waves I had aroused interest on the beach amongst the local surfers. The local surfers are both guys and girls but they are fairly laid back, like they don't compete at all for waves. They seemd to be into the surfing lifestyle trip which seemed to be less of an athletic approach. Certainly it is good for visiting surfers. I spoke to a couple in the water and one was telling me about a point that was good in big waves, so they are willing to share their knowledge. Some of these surf shops also double as club headquarters and from the look of it might even provide rudimentary accommodation as I saw bunk beds, lockers and showers. Indeed I used a locker and the showers at one of these shops.