Swim near a nuclear power plant in Taiwan

Global Post reports on the Taiwanese nuclear power plant looming over a popular beach.

To date, Taiwan has a near spotless nuclear safety record. That means few here fear having their beach time ruined by a meltdown. "Maybe we've just been lucky," [A 52-year-old parking lot attendant] added with a laugh.

But he said the beach has changed dramatically since he was a child. Then, coral covered the shallow sea floor. "Now, they're all dead," he said. "I don't know if it's because of global warming or the nuclear plant."

Read the full story: Welcome to Taiwan's nuclear beach

Photo by Pichi Chuang/Reuters

Biking in Europe and Taiwan

Today's post is about bike trips because we've noticed that biking has become more popular and more people are writing about it.

Associated Press writer William Foreman writes about his experience with his bike in one of Taiwan's love hotels. (picture right)

We were guys staying at the same hotel with our mistresses.

He looked like a Taiwanese gangster, with permed hair, black suit and pointy knockoff Italian loafers. It was 5:30 a.m. and he was renting a room for a few hours with a woman in a leather mini skirt, fishnet stockings and the longest false eyelashes I've ever seen. They had no luggage.

My mistress was my $4,000 carbon-fiber bicycle

Leah Larkin writes about her and husband Bob's bike trip through France's wine country for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

Bicycle Bob, my cycling husband, is not like most of us on a bicycle. He loves hills, the steeper the better.

On a trip last autumn in the Vaucluse region of Provence in southern France, he found a winner — a "mini Mont Ventoux" (the famous Tour de France mountain). That’s what a local called it.

And Sue Halpern writes for Conde Nast Traveler about biking in the flat country of Denmark.

Please note: Ecotravel News will be away and but resume posting in early August