Taiwan: East Coast

First stop: Chenggong (成功鎮)

Once New Year's celebrations were over we hopped on a bus heading south on the scenic Highway 11.  We stopped first in Chenggong so we could visit Sansiantai (三仙台), a local island with a famous bridge.

Hiking around at Sansiantai

Sansiantai Bridge

The beautiful coast
Canon 10-22@18, f/14, 0.6s, polarizer, 3-stop ND

Dulan

We only stayed one night in Chenggong, then bused onward to the town of Dulan.  Dulan (都蘭) is a pretty town on the coast, but it's been the site of protests in the last decade against commercial development.  In 2003 a local artist protested a huge development project planned for the beachfront by walking into the sea.  The project was halted, but a big hotel has since been built  There is a legal battle over whether the hotel's construction was legal and so it hasn't opened yet.

We stayed in a quirky guesthouse close to the ocean, back in a maze of country lanes and farms.

I had to duck most of the time in the guesthouse

This was the entrance to our room.  We seriously had to crawl through this hole knocked in the wall.
by Min

The first time we went into town from our guesthouse, we walked.  Our host told us it was 1.5km, but it turned out to be about 5km.  It... took a while.  Someone even stopped and offered us a lift but I said no, we're already almost there.  It turned out we were not already almost there.


The next time we bused.

Waiting for the bus to Dulan

In Dulan there was a really popular bakery run by a Taiwanese woman and her American husband.  I was really happy about the bakery because finding good bread in Taiwan is really difficult.  There was also a local bar that hosted live music.  We saw a Taiwanese duo who were quite good.

Singing one of Min's favorite songs called "海洋", or "Ocean", originally written by a  police officer from nearby Taitung who was posted on Lanyu (蘭嶼) off the coast

Dulan also had an art gallery featuring local artists.  The town has a large population of aboriginal people, who are distinct from the ethnically Han majority in Taiwan.  Many of the works in the gallery were lamenting the changes occurring in Dulan with commercial development and cultural changes.

Off to Lanyu

After two nights in Dulan we bused down to a port in Taitung and got on a 3-hour boat to Lanyu (蘭嶼 or Orchid Island).

Not excited about this boat trip

Next up: Lanyu