Today we wake up really early in order to catch the ferry to Lanyu our next, even more exotic, destination. As we eat breakfast we notice an interesting bird in front of our balcony and looking more closely we see it is a Styan’s Bulbul, an endemic species found only here in South Taiwan, quite unexpected and fortuitous. The ferry is just 15 minutes away and then it takes some time just to find a parking spot, in the end we park in a more wild spot before moving to the ticket office to pick our tickets. We leave the large luggage in the car and take only two backpacks with us for the one night we will spend on the island.
From the waiting room we walk a short distance to the ferry. It looks like a beautiful day today, we think, as we take in the sea breeze and the fishing boats in the harbor. Little did we know…
As we enter we notice the plastic bags distributed throughout the cabin,we really don’t think much about them. But then as we leave and waves become larger people start to scream and then they start to vomit. And vomit and vomit an unending stream, it feels like a horror movie. Some people are crying it is very surprising as we expected most people to be used with relatively rough seas. We are really happy when we reach Lanyu and proud with being almost the only people that didn’t need a bag besides the sailors.
Exiting we see all the people that are trying to climb now on the ship, wonder if they are going to clean it at all? As the people are already lined up to board at the entrance.
It is now time to find our car rental, our accomodation also rents cars and supposedly we can get one from the harbor. And there it is just as it starts to rain but unfortunately the first car does not work so a second car is needed. And then finally we are on our way to explore this small and special island.
We soon learn that we might be the only people that rented a car, most other people rent scooters and there are lots of them, groups and groups of people moving in tours mostly. In fact at the first overlook we stop we barely find parking due to multiple tours but we are happy we stopped as the views are quite beautiful and we can get our bearings.
And then the tours leave and suddenly the viewpoint is almost empty. It is quite weird how the scooter groups pass by like swarms really. Now it is quiet and we notice on the other side of the road quite a few goats, these are the famous goats of Lanyu. They move on their own grazing the island but supposedly all are owned and woe to whoever hits one by mistake.
The viewpoint has a short trail that you can take to see also the view from the other side of the headland which is quite beautiful also. And then it is time to move on passing carefully through small towns where the road narrows dangerously due to parked cars towards our next goal the Lanyu museum.
The museum has a really small parking lot but we find parking, probably because it is closed permanently. Our pre information was hazy but we half expected it, still we wanted to visit to see the tatara boat representations and the buried house, who knows where we can see either of them again.
While the tatara boat is just a reconstruction the buried house looks real. Unfortunately you cannot enter it but at least you can descend to it and see how it was built. They were buried due to the heat, it is cooler underground. This is similar to what we saw in Newfoundland and even in some places in the US where the buried chambers were used as coolers before refrigeration. And then it is time for our major attraction here, the Red Head Forest Trail were we are hoping to see many of the special birds found on this island.
