Little Liuchu island biking trip - Day 2

Well, after a whole month of procrastinating, busy life and bad moods, I've finally found the time and am in the mood to continue some more story telling... :)
(Link to day 1 | All photos)

Apr 6

After a night at uncle's in Kaoshung(高雄), I planned to ride directly to Pingdong(屏東), Dongong (東港) port and off to Little Liuchu island (小琉球), yet uncle & aunt said they are going to Pingdong and could give me a ride. Considering that would save me some time, I once again disassembled my bike and hopped on their car. Interesting how disassembling my bike rapidly surprises people every time, though. I got off at Chauchu(潮州), where another uncle's house is. Nice that I could leave my clothes here and ride off to the island with a lighter load, yet, I stayed for an hour, had a chat and a banana, and got back on the road with 2 more bananas in my pack. Bananas are free and fresh since uncle has some banana trees of his own.

I like the feel of riding in Pingdong, typically feels like in a southern tropical place with all the rice paddies, betel nut trees, bananas and coconut trees. Yet in the cloudy day, it's not as hot as usual, quite nice and comfortable. I got to the port at about 10:30am, finding out that my speed isn't as fast as day one, and that I might have got there faster if I started from Kaoshung, saving that one hour's chat.

But oh well, I got there and quickly found the ferry terminal for the island. There was 2 ferry companies, with one of them working for the government with less frequent departures but a cheaper price. I bought a round trip ticket for only 350 and got on with my bike. I was told that a fee of 50NTD will be collected for my bike upon arrival at the island.

The ferry was much cleaner and the ride was much smoother then I expected. You could clearly see 2 kinds of passengers on board: the excited tourists and the island residents who sleep through the ride. And as you guessed, yours truly was one of the excited tourists who can't stay in his own seat for more then 5 minutes, walking around, looking here and there and taking pictures. And even more excited when the island comes into sight.

As we come to shore, I went aft to "rescue" my bike from the sea of scooters, took my bike on to the pier and some one directed me to exit in one direction. I went that way and was already outside of the terminal, wondering why no one came to collect my bike's 50NTD transportation fee... (In the end, I realized that under the direction of that mysterious "somebody", me, and several others exited from the entrance, bypassing the toll collection.)



Finally on the road circling this little tropical island. The sea air was clean and cool, free of polution, the same also with the surrounding sea water. Best of all, this place isn't as crowded as in the city, nor as tense the life style. Just by standing on this tiny coral reef island, I can somehow feel an atmosphere of serenity and relaxation.

Went down a route off the road leading to a rocky sea shore, and saw the sea water close up and personal this time. The water was so clean it was practically crystal clear, and the shore line so clean and pristine that it seemed untouched by humans. Never, have I ever saw sea water this clean around Taiwan. And the sea shore drift garbage that we all expect on most Taiwan sea shores are nowhere to be found in this natural environment. Ah, this is such a great place for a vacation, a clean and natural tropical island so close to Taiwan and the ferry tickets so affordable.

Next to the little route, on the side of the road, stands a resting post, where I was so fortunate to meet 4 other cyclers riding around the island. The 2 husband and wife couples were staying in bed&breakfasts on the island and planed to stay for 3 days, relaxing and taking their time. They told me that the seaside sunsets and sunrise were dazzling. At that instant, I started to regret leaving my clothes at uncle's house: I started to wish I had planned to stay on the island longer. Having seeing that the road around the island was only 20km long, I never though I would want to stay there. Yet, I believe now that a relaxing night on the clean beach would be like a dream. But then again, I set out on this trip to get a taste of solitary, not romance. So maybe next time, if I would ever want to goto a tropical island to have some sweet romance, this would be a great destination.

As the group of 4 planned to ride in the opposite direction, after a pleasant chat, we bid our goodbyes, hoped we'd meet on the other side of the island, and parted our ways. Soon I arrived at the main harbor on the island, the one where the other ferry company comes in. Now, this is where all the tourists are: gone with the serenity and the place filled with seafood restaurant, souvenir shops, snack stands, convenient stores, scooter rentals and even stores selling flowery beach trousers (yikes, only 60NTD each!!!), and beach sandals. So this is where I had my lunch, simple noodles and ride on.

Since there's not much cars nor buses on the island, most people get around on motor scooters. And thus, you see very interesting views of whole groups of tourists in cheep beach pants with flower paterns and slippers on their feet, on rental scooters forming a large group of young riders zooming by. Just can't help but laugh at the interestingly comical sight. This is truly a place where people come to have fun.


The main attractions of the island are mostly stones and holes of special shapes around the shore, all works of the power of sea waves. Many of those attractions require tickets, and those are the ones that I by pass. I just don't see the point of paying to see a stone. Yet the free ones are good enough.

There are several small dirt roads that lead out from the main road, which made me really want to try some offroad routes, although I only got road tires on. I initially hoped those dirt roads would cut through the grass bushes to the sea shore, yet, all of them lead to dead ends with tombs. Well, not a good place for "off road" riding...

The best part of the island was the beach, which I already saw on the ferry, and longed to go. The road to the beach was yet another obscure leading off from the main road. As with most of the shore of the island, is was a clean shore facing crystal clear sea water. But something made this beach stand out: it's not a shore of sand, it's full of coral reef and sea shell debris with all sorts of colors (mostly white, though), and a lot of sea weed. I took of my sandals and walked out to the near shallow part of the sea. I could see clearly through the water, my feet, the coral pallets and cute little sea weed that look like fur balls. Sometimes you step on one of those, and it feels, well slippery and furry. The dry part of the beach, on the other hand, is a great place to sit, since most of it were pallets, it's not as hard to clean off as sand. Even of you do get sand on your feet, you just walk in the clean sea water, and you're all clean again.

By the way, the 2nd banana tasted good on the beach.

Not long after leaving the beach, I meet the other cycling friend of 4 again, and they invited me to some coffee. Turns out they always bring coffee, a mocca pot and a little stove on trips. Although it's not the best coffee beans, it's still so nice to have coffee here outdoors. We talked more about coffee, bikes and more. Turns out we know the same bike store in Taichung(台中). The biking community in Taiwan sure's small.


Taiwanese people tend to like to give names to stones that look like faces from certain angles, and here I give you the "Indian stone" and the "budda stone". Well does look a little like it, but what's going on with all the fluffy green "hair" on the Indian? And why do I think that the Indian's mouth look more like Optomus Prime from the Transformers...

Next on, after a little climb, there's a century old tree

And as a very very old tree is like a miracle, people think it's kind of holy, and so as you would expect with Taiwanese, a "shrine of the old tree" would always be next to the tree, worshiping the "tree god".


"The White Lighthouse" was about 1km from the old tree, at the end of the up hill route. Well, it's a lighthouse alright, it's white alright. But I don't see anything special of it. I don't understand why I had to wait about 20 minutes to get a picture of it alone: waiting for 1 pair of newlyweds to get their wedding photos taken. And, after I released my shutter once, I had no chance to do it again, as another pair of newlyweds, this time with all family and friends came for the same thing... What a commotion!



Soon it was time to leave, as uncle was waiting back at Chauchu(潮州) was waiting for me for dinner. I got to the ferry terminal 3:00, and waited for the 3:30pm one . Yet the 3:30pm one came and said the water's too shallow and the other, shallower boat was on another duty. Thus it was not until 4 that I got on the boat. Yet in the one hour waiting time, I met another group of bikers from Kaoshung. I guess making new friend of all different walks of people is part of traveling alone, making it interesting in another way then that of traveling with old friends.


I got back to Donggong harbor at about 4:30pm. This time, yes, they did remember to collect that 50NTD fee for bike transport. I was back in Chauchu in about an hour, yet got lost in Chauchu city for a short while.

Dinner was at a "beef hotpots" restaurants' where you pick up the stuff you want to put in your pot your self, in plates and they calculate the price by the empty plates you left on your table. Usually when eating hotpots with friends, they'll argue what should go in first, what goes in next. But with uncle and cousin here, they just dump everything in and start eating, regardless of the danger of overcooking anything. Throwing food in the pot freestyle don't give you food cooked to the right point, but it still tasted good enough, and you don't worry about anything but eat till you're full. That's an interesting approach.