Video of our latest trip to the islands of Penghu in Taiwan.
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Thanks for asking. We are a small publishing company (Vision) based in Taipei. We produce an English magazine (Travel in Taiwan) introducing you to Taiwan as a travel destination. Read it! Lot of useful information. We also have a website with lots of articles about Taiwan. Visit it! We try to make a video or two every week.
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We visited places on the main island and the smaller islands of Qimei and Wang'an. Unfortunately an approaching typhoon messed up our original plan of visiting another island, Jibei. We rented scooters which is the best way to get around. The double heart stone weir was indeed beautiful, the whale cave was impressive too. There was less people on the fine sand beach than we expected. Overall a nice trip.
Migrator Intertidal Homestay (候鳥潮間帶民宿)
Add: 34-3, Chengqian Village, Baisha Township, Penghu County (澎湖縣白沙鄉城前村34-3號)
Tel: 0921-292-029
Website: migrator.com.tw
“Old-Time Tianjin Xialongbao” (回味天津小籠包)
Add: 43, Juguang New Village, Magong City (馬公市莒光新村43號)
Tel: 0919-872-143
Aimen Beach 隘門沙灘
Baisha 白沙
Erkan Village 二崁村
Four-Eyed Well 四眼井
Lintou Beach 林投沙灘
Magong 馬公
Magong Cultural Center 媽宮文化城
Mazu 媽祖
Penghu 澎湖
Qimei 七美
Qingwan Cactus Park 青灣仙人掌公園,
Shanshui Beach 山水沙灘
Shili Beach 時裡沙灘
Taiwan Strait 台灣海峽
Tianhou Temple天后宮主
Tiantai Hill 天台山
Twin Hearts Stone Weir雙心石滬;
Wang’an望安
Xiyu 西嶼
Yuwengdao Lighthouse漁翁島燈塔
Zhongshe中社聚落群
Zhongyang Street中央街
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Also watch the latest video on this channel: {Trip} LALASHAN on the Northern Cross-Island Highway (北橫拉拉山)
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Travel in Taiwan (2015, 9/10)
By Rick Charette
We woke up bright and early this day to catch an early-morning ferry to Qimei, the southernmost South Sea island. Hopping on scooters right at the pier (rental included in ferry-ticket price), we headed out on the very quiet coastal road – more goats than cars. Qimei’s iconic symbol is the Twin Hearts Stone Weir, made of stones piled laboriously, which fills at high tide and leaves fish stranded at low. The Tomb of the Seven Beauties – “Qimei” means “Seven Beauties” – is built around a well down which seven chaste Ming Dynasty maidens are said to have thrown themselves on the approach of nasty-intent Japanese pirates. Among the other must-visit Qimei attractions we checked off our to-do list were the picturesque Little Taiwan and Waiting for Husband Rock, two coastal rock formations viewed from above.
Rather than traveling straight back to Magong, we stopped off at Wang’an for a few hours’ exploration of this island. The highlights of our meander along the sleepy round-island coastal road? Tiantai Hill and the village of Zhongshe. Your walk up Tiantai Hill, the island’s highest point, leads to wonderful panoramic views over Wang’an and its numerous nearby islands. Wonderful Zhongshe is an old narrow-lane fishing village, almost all homes stone/coral-built. Be sure to stop in for the homemade ice-cream at the shop – shade is at a premium in the village – under the huge Penghu-renowned “Wang’an Township Tree,” an Indian almond tree planted by the shop owner’s mother in 1928.
Penghu is home to many long, fine-sand beaches. Four of the most popular are on the island of Penghu’s south side – Lintou, Aimen, Shanshui, and Shili. On the morn of this day we visited each in turn. I especially like Lintou and Shanshui. Lintou and Aimen are connected by a long beach-edge boardwalk; behind Lintou Beach is Lintou Park, a shady, aesthetically laid-out tree park in which you can sit yourself down to alfresco coffee at a bright and breezy café. At Shanshui’s entrance is a bustling cluster of beach-bum-style eateries and cafés, and backing its west side is an attractive protected lagoon area traversed in part by a long boardwalk. This leads to a high promontory that drops into the surf at the beach’s west end. Topped with a large lookout, formerly part of an off-limits military zone, the promontory is dotted with abandoned camouflaged bunkers, pillboxes, and other facilities, one outfitted with heritage photos and information boards (Chinese) on this spot’s military and ecological past.
Near Shili, pretty much at Penghu’s southwest tip, is the compelling, still-being-developed Qingwan Cactus Park. There are two foci. Cacti, yes – the archipelago’s dry, flattish, windswept environment is perfect for cactus growth. And military history – the park site is a former Japanese military base rich in ruins, notably hidden big-gun emplacements, bunker barracks, and command posts.
Third and last video of our recent Kending (Kenting) We visited Maobitou, Baisha Bay, Wanlitong and Hengchung Town. I really liked Baisha Bay. Not many people there on a weekday in April. Probably packed in the summer months.
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WHO ARE WE?
Thanks for asking. We are a small publishing company (Vision) based in Taipei. We produce an English magazine (Travel in Taiwan) introducing you to Taiwan as a travel destination. Read it! Lot of useful information. We also have a website with lots of articles about Taiwan. Visit it! We try to make a video or two every week.
Let us know what you think about this channel and what you would like to see about Taiwan. All the best to you!
English and Chinese
Baisha Bay 白沙灣
Chenghuang (City God) Temple 城隍廟
Hengchun Peninsula 恆春半島
Kenting/Kending 墾丁
Kenting National Park 墾丁國家公園
Maobitou 貓鼻頭
Mt. Gui (Trail) 龜山
Wanlitong 萬里桐
West Coast and Maobitou Peninsula
On the coast in the park’s northwest corner, along County Highway 153 not far off Highway 26, is the renowned National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (nmmba.gov.tw). Directly to its north, lookouts cap a large hill that strikingly soars up amidst flatlands all around. This is gentle-slope Mt. Gui (“Turtle Mountain”), shaped like a giant turtle shell. The Mt. Gui Trail snakes up to the 72m-high crest, from which grand inland panoramas of farmland, towns, and backdrop mountains fill the eye. The hill’s upper reaches are dotted with military ruins; the Japanese landed a punitive expedition on local shores in 1874, after area natives massacred shipwrecked Japanese sailors, and fortified the mountain after taking over Taiwan in 1895.
Further south along the national park’s west-coast side is Wanlitong and, near its southernmost tip, Baisha Bay. Compact Wanlitong village, markedly quieter than most other local tourist hotspots on the Hengchun Peninsula, is perched up above the raised-coral coastline. The tiny, shallow bay here is a first-rate snorkeling spot and there is just one on-site snorkeling outfit, resulting in a notably relaxed feel to the fun akin to a party atmosphere, with waves of groups wading out into the waters behind instructors.
Baisha (“White Sand”) Bay has a long white-sand beach with a cluster of beach bars and simple eateries at its northern end, and water-fun rental facilities at different points. There is paid parking at the northern end, and free parking about halfway down its length, the latter leading to a stretch somewhat quieter on busy weekends/holidays.
Baisha Bay is on the Maobitou peninsula, which projects south into the sea from Hengchun Peninsula’s southwest corner. Maobitou offers superb scenery at its southern tip, giant boulders strewn at the foot of its cliffs, viewed from a breezy plateau-top park which has food and drink facilities. High up its eastern side is Houbihu Fishing Harbor, from which many area diving/snorkeling enterprises launch boat expeditions.
The key attractions in Hengchun Town are the remnants of the brick-façade city wall built by China’s Qing Dynasty government in the late 19th century, for protection against anticipated attacks by the world’s colonial powers and to intimidate the region’s rebellious indigenous population.
A total of 2.7km of the wall and gates has been preserved. The best-known site is Nanmen (South Gate). Close by is Hengchun’s bright, floral-color City God Temple, first built in 1892, razed by the Japanese, and rebuilt in 2014 to house the City God icon, which was hidden away from the Japanese.
Café 1918 (恆春信用組合)
Café 1918 is close by Hengchun’s South Gate, in a heritage building originally built in 1918 to house a credit union and last housing a farmers’ cooperative. One of the original safes is now part of the décor. Café by day and bar by night, the quest here is to be a welcoming LOHAS space, sharing space with artists and craftspeople – currently, metalwork-jewelry classes are held on weekends, and local crafts and specialty-food products are displayed for sale. The highlight menu offering is a distinctive chicken curry made with dark chocolate.
Add: No. 155, Wenhua Rd., Hengchun Town, Pingtung County
(屏東縣恆春鎮文化路155號)
Tel: 0930-808-389
Website: zh-tw.facebook.com/Cafe1918/
Taiwan’s only beer museum, off Highway 26 on Hengchun’s west side, is also home to a craft-beer brewery. At Hengchun 3000 Brewseum visitors are met with one soaring wall lined with 3,000 beer mugs/steins sourced from around the globe, and another with a giant Mona Lisa made of beer-bottle labels. Sit down to try the brewery’s numerous creations on tap, all named after Hengchun-area places, or buy them in cans to take home.
Add: No. 29-1, Caopu Rd., Hengchun Town, Pingtung County
(屏東縣恆春鎮草埔路29-1號)
Tel: 0905-786-383
Website: zh-tw.facebook.com/3000Brewseum/
Trip to central Taiwan's Nantou County. Among the places visited:
01:20 Beyoung Garden 竹青庭人文空間
03:00 Sky Ladder 梯子吊橋(風景區)
06:50 Le Midi Hotel Chitou 米堤大飯店
11:00 Wangyou Forest 忘憂森林
14:30 Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area 溪頭自然教育園區
15:40 - Herb and Flower Garden 草花園
17:10 - Songlong Rock Waterfall 松瀧岩瀑布
20:00 - Qinglong Waterfall 青龍瀑布
20:55 Xiaobantian 小半天
21:00- Moso bamboo forest 孟宗竹林
24:30 - Dexing Waterfall 德興瀑布
25:20 - Xiaobantian Bridge 小半天高架橋
25:50 - Qilin Lake 麒麟潭
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WHO ARE WE?
We are a small publishing company (Vision) based in Taipei. We produce an English magazine (Travel in Taiwan) introducing you to Taiwan as a travel destination. Read it! Lot of useful information. We also have a website with lots of articles about Taiwan. Visit it! We try to make a video or two every week. Let us know what you think about this channel and what you would like to see about Taiwan. All the best to you!
Travel in Taiwan 2018-1-2
Forests, Flowers, and Waterfalls
Text: Rick Charette
Sun-Link-Sea
A “forest and nature resort,” a privately operated getaway idyll (NT$250 entry fee).
At the upper end of the resort road is at Songlong Rock Waterfall. At the base of a Cinemascope-wide semi-circular cliff is a large, deep green lagoon busy with fish in the water and eye-catching birds above. Two massive mid-lagoon boulders are covered completely with vegetation, trees “impossibly” growing atop their solid-rock bed. The cliff’s base is “gone,” to a height of 30 meters and a depth of 30, a cave now where once soft sandstone was emplaced. A paved pathway takes you along the cliff base and through the gaping hole, and you emerge directly before the waterfall itself, at its base.
Sun-Link-Sea Forest and Nature Resort
Add: No. 6, Xishan Rd., Da’an Borough, Zhushan Township, Nantou County (南投縣竹山鎮大鞍里溪山路6號)
Tel: (049) 261-1217
Website:
Between Sun-Link-Sea and Xitou – Wangyou Forest
Beside County Road 95, a few kilometers from Sun-Link-Sea, you’ll see a large “Wangyou Forest” sign From there, a narrow road leaps up past tea fields, tilted at startling angles. Take the 15-minute huff-and-puff walk up to the forest-entrance path (NT$50 entry), or use one of the privately-operated shuttle vans (NT$200 return). Wangyou Forest is a section of tall-pine forest drowned when the creek that gurgles through was blocked by Taiwan’s infamous 921 Earthquake in 1999.
Le Midi Hotel Chitou
This is a veritable high-mountain hideaway oasis of regal splendor amidst a world of tall trees and rugged mountains. The owners are avid hunters of European-nobility antiques, and eager to show them off. In the lobby and other areas you are regaled with imperial-French furniture, clocks, and other curios collected on hunting forays in Europe. The guestrooms are all spacious and tastefully appointed in modernistic continental European style, with bright nature-evocative green, white, and brown tones predominant. Room rates start at NT$11,000; one dinner and breakfast included
Le Midi Hotel Chitou
Add: No. 1, Miti St., Neihu Village, Lugu Township, Nantou County
(南投縣鹿谷鄉內湖村米堤街1號)
Tel: (049) 261-2222
Website:
Xiaobantian Bridge
Opened in 2014, this is mountainous Nantou County’s highest extradosed bridge, its roadbed 60 meters up from the valley floor. Its soaring grey towers are shaped like giant bamboo stalks, just like Taipei’s famed Taipei 101 tower. Xiaobantian is home to numerous fetching waterfalls, Dexing Waterfall perhaps the best-known. On the higher reaches of a boulder-strewn Beishi River tributary stream, it has two sections, the upper, 30m high, has carved a cool, calm pool at its base perfect for wading.
Sky Ladder Scenic Area (NT$50 adults)
A well-maintained trail brings you down, down, relentlessly down to the bottom of Taiji Gorge. Moving through thick bamboo forest, among your gorge-bottom rewards will be the Sky Ladder – a suspension-bridge engineering marvel – a sheer-cliff cave-dwelling Earth God temple below it, and Qinglong Waterfall.
BeYoung Garden
On the second floor of a still-operating small inter-town bus station that looks like a set for a 1950s period movie. “Zhushan” literally means “Bamboo Mountain”; the area is renowned for bamboo cultivation and products, bamboo is a key restaurant decorative material, and the chefs make edible bamboo a prominent ingredient. Specially recommended: the “three-cups mushroom bitter-tea range chicken” and “dried bamboo with soy-braised pork” set meals.
BeYoung Garden
Add: 2F, No. 27, Caiyuan Rd., Zhongshan Borough, Zhushan Township, Nantou County
(南投縣竹山鎮中山里菜園路27號2樓)
Tel: (04) 9265-6176
Website:
#Nantou #SunLinkSea #Taiwaneverything
Third day of our recent East Coast trip. We visited the southernmost parts of Yilan County, including Dong'ao and Nan'ao. Very special places, indeed! :)
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Gear used for this video
Camera:
Panasonic Lumix GH4:
Lenses:
PANASONIC LUMIX G X Vario Lens, 12-35mm:
PANASONIC LUMIX G Vario Lens, 100-300mm:
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8:
Panasonic DMW-MS2:
GoPro Session 4 & 5
Travel in Taiwan magazine (2017-05-06)
By Rick Charette
Coastal Scenery – Dong’ao and Nan’ao
The inexpressibly impressive Su-Hua Highway twists and turns, often high above the sea etched into the cliffs, 118km between Su’ao and the coastal city of Hualien. On this trip we venture south to the town of Nan’ao. The highway, a delivery vehicle to magisterial scenery in places, began as a mere footpath hacked from the coastal mountainsides by China’s Qing Dynasty government between 1874 and 1876. From Nanfang’ao to Nan’ao, the terrain is defined by steep cliffs footed by wave-pounded rocky shores, indented periodically by bays, small fishing ports, and narrow arable alluvial flatlands.
The Dong’ao port, small and tranquil Fenniaolin Fishing Harbor, is reached from the coastal highway via a long cliff-base road beside a broad turquoise-hue bay and gravel beach decorated with a fantastic kaleidoscope of stones each an artwork in itself, each a painter’s canvas of marvel-inducing color variation in miniature. The coastal highway here, seen above, snakes along so high up that crested serpent eagles drift below rather than above it.
The harbor is on the north-side foot of nose-shaped Wushibi, the most prominent headland along the Su-Hua Highway, which projects far out into the sea. Clamber over the dike-wall on the harbor’s ocean-facing side to enjoy the thrilling seascape of wave-washed reefs and water-surrounded rock formations at the hidden-away “Secret Rocky Shore.”
In Nan’ao, the Chaoyang Trail starts by the roadside just before Chaoyang Fishing Harbor. Stretching 2.2km, it runs up and over 181m-high Guishan (“Turtle Mountain”). The steep first section is conquered in 10~15 minutes, delivering hikers to a hilltop lookout with a commanding overview of harbor, sea, Wushibi on the north, and a narrow arm of the fertile, farm-dotted Nan’ao alluvial plain. Keep an eye out for tree frogs trailside, and eagles overhead.
If you happen to understand Chinese, and happen to search online for good places for a Nan’ao meal, you’re sure to come across the effusive recommendations given the country-warmth Good Eats Café. On the main floor of a two-floor residence just off the coastal highway on the Chaoyang Harbor road, it’s run by a Taipei refugee whose plan to move here to run a small organic farm morphed into running the café to showcase healthy local produce. Meals, based on what she has just harvested and purchased at Chaoyang Harbor, include such Taiwanese rural-style treats as chicken soup with mustard greens and yam, Hakka-style “tofu” made with peanut and rice powder (no soybean), and pumpkin cake.
Good Eats Café (好糧食堂)
Tel: 0919-117-273
Add: No. 13-1, Nan’ao Rd., Su’ao Township, Yilan County
(宜蘭縣蘇澳鎮南澳路13-1號)
Website: okogreen.com.tw/blog/4326 (Chinese)
Chaoyang Fishing Harbor
This harbor, sleepy most of the day, is bracketed by high bluffs. Wushibi serves as the natural barrier on its north side. The waters beyond the harbor are the richest fishing grounds in Su’ao Township’s south area. The rocky shores here are also a favorite with shore fishermen.
Local buyers and tourists flock here daily at around 7am and 4pm, when boats arrive laden with catch from the deep open sea and especially the rich Kuroshio Current that rushes north off the east coast. After boats dock impressively large and high-value migratory catch is tossed up, and camera-toting tourists are mightily impressed with the seemingly chaotic yet highly disciplined public buying process, carried out rapidly with surprising quiet.
Finish your southeastern Yilan expedition with a windy walk along long, long Mystery Beach, just south of the Chaoyang harbor/trail area. Nature’s power is on glorious display here. Artists delight at the prodigious pile-up of driftwood specimens driven high up the beach by Taiwan’s typhoons, and the mighty coastal currents create tremendous roiling waters that bash the shore with thundering audio accompaniment.
Chaoyang Fishing Harbor 朝陽漁港
Chaoyang Trail 朝陽步道
Fenniaolin Fishing Harbor 粉鳥林漁港
Mystery Beach 神秘海灘
Su-Hua Highway 蘇花公路
Last week we went to the southern tip of Taiwan for a four day trip to Kending (Kenting). Here is the second video, showing you places on the southern side of the Hengchun Peninsula.
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Smokey Joe's
Chateau Beach Resort
Add: No. 2, Kengding Rd., Hengchun Township, Pingtung County (屏東縣恆春鎮墾丁路2號)
Tel: (08) 886-2222
Website:
Howard Beach Resort Kenting
Add: No. 451, Kengding Rd., Hengchun Township, Pingtung County (屏東縣恆春鎮墾丁路451號)
Tel: (08) 886-2323
Website:
Piccolo Polpo (迷路小章魚)
Add: No. 68 Nanwan Rd., Hengchun Township, Pingtung County (屏東縣恆春鎮南灣路68號)
Tel: (08) 888-2822
Website:
Ocean Blue (海餐廳)
Add: No. 111, Kending Rd., Hengchun Township, Pingtung County (屏東縣恆春鎮墾丁路111號)
Tel: (08) 886-2800
Website: ocean-blue-kenting.com (Chinese)
Banana Bay香蕉灣
Eluanbi鵝鑾鼻
Hengchun Peninsula恆春半島
Jialeshui 佳樂水
Kenting National Park墾丁國家公園
Nanwan南灣
Sail Rock船帆石
Southernmost Point of Taiwan台灣最南點
Xiaowan小灣
Gear used for this video
Camera:
Panasonic Lumix GH4:
Lenses:
PANASONIC LUMIX G X Vario Lens, 12-35mm:
PANASONIC LUMIX G Vario Lens, 100-300mm:
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8:
Panasonic DMW-MS2:
GoPro Session 4 & 5
Travel in Taiwan magazine Jul./Aug. 2017:
South Coast
Between the Maobitou peninsula on the west and Eluanbi peninsula on the east, this is Kenting’s most popular tourist area, with a high concentration of beaches and resorts as well as restaurants, bars, cafes, and boutiques.
Nanwan, or South Bay, is in the crook where Maobitou and the main body of the Hengchun Peninula meet. This is the best and most popular locale for inshore frolicking—swimming, windsurfing, jet-skiing, kayaking, banana-boating, skin-diving, snorkeling, what have you. There are change rooms, showers, and shops renting all necessary gear/toys. Adding to Nanwan’s allure is the fact it is second only to nearby Kending town, which we visit next, for restaurants and watering holes.
Kending is fun-central in the park. This is where all the action happens at night. Highway 26 does double-duty as the town’s main street, and as the sun retires over the western horizon each day local residents don vendors’ hats and line both sides with food stalls. Backing them are scores of bricks-and-mortar enticements, with everything from cafes, bars, and restaurants to indie-designer jewelry and crafts shops. On the town’s eastern edge are some especially entertaining sights – small lorries which, once the shutters on the back cabins are lowered, magically become bars and pizzerias. Owners set up seating alongside. The former are stocked to “the rafters” with famous spirits brands, and the latter have flatbed-mounted brick pizza ovens.
Off Kending’s eastern end, in a pretty sheltered cove, is the Xiaowan (“Small Bay”) beach, directly across Highway 26 from two of the park’s resort-hotel queens, one of these the Howard Beach Resort (see Box). During the day a wide range of watersports equipment is available for rent at the beach. At night, after the water-focused fun ceases, the wide-deck wood-theme café/eatery here transforms into a mellow open-air bar, ’70s rock complementing the soothing music of arriving waves.
East of Kending is Banana Bay, site of a miniscule fishing harbor. On either side of its cement breakwater walls is easily accessible upraised-coral shoreline, beyond which is an underwater world popular with divers.
Nearby iconic park attractions are Shadao and Sail Rock. The first is a magnificent 300m stretch of protected beach that actually shines. In the on-site exhibition hall, it’s said this is Taiwan’s purest shell-sand; the coast makes a dramatic 90-degree turn here, meaning materials are washed in and churned but not easily washed out. Sail Rock is a towering 18m-high slab of exposed coral offshore said either to resemble a Chinese imperial war junk or US President Richard Nixon’s profile. But what I see is a Kenting angelfish.
My first time on this island in southern Taiwan. It was very hot and we had fun riding scooters around the island, taking in the sight, going on a tidal zone eco exploration tour and just enjoying being there.
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We stayed at:
Hao He E Minsu (好喝ㄟ民宿)
Add: No. 176, Zhongshan Rd., Benfu Village, Liuqiu Township, Pingtung County (屏東縣琉球鄉本福村中山路176號)
Tel: (08) 861-4148 / 0988-290-629
Website: (Chinese)
More info about the Little Liuqiu at:
Gear used for this video
Camera:
Panasonic Lumix GH4:
Lenses:
PANASONIC LUMIX G X Vario Lens, 12-35mm:
PANASONIC LUMIX G Vario Lens, 100-300mm:
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8:
Panasonic DMW-MS2:
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Also watch the latest video on this channel: {Trip} LALASHAN on the Northern Cross-Island Highway (北橫拉拉山)
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Travel in Taiwan (9/10, 2016)
By Rick Charette
Little Liuqiu is 25 minutes by ferry from Donggang. Just 6.8 sq. km., with just 13,000 inhabitants, it’s made almost entirely of coral and is well known for its wondrous, imaginatively named coastal formations, such as Wild Boar Trench, Vase Rock, and Black Devil Cave.
Your constant companions here will be the sounds of wind, wave, and birdsong. The island’s income has long been predominantly hauled in from the sea, with an ever-bigger catch today hauled in from tourists.
As your ferry approaches Baisha, the main town, and enters Baisha Tourist Harbor, you’ll see a large and lovely arcaded Western colonial-style building high on the slope to its right – the Little Liuqiu Visitor Center. Buy tickets for the island’s boat and glass-bottom boat tour outings here, get practical help for snorkeling experiences, etc., and enjoy the sweeping vista from the wide outdoor scenic platform.
The center is right beside the top tier of the grand, ornate Lingshan Temple, which rides up the cliffside here in three tiers. One of two key deities in this sumptuous yet dignified complex is Lady Linshui (“Lady by the Water’s Edge”), a goddess of fertility and protector of women and children. One of the resident Buddhist nuns explained to me that the goddess is important to islanders because “the men also worry so much about family when out on the sea.”
Vase Rock is right off the temple’s foot on the rocky coast. This huge chunk of exposed coral has a thin base and oversized head topped with stubborn weeds and thistles. It is the island’s most iconic coastal feature, and most photographed attraction. Many come here for the sunsets, the sun dropping down neatly between flowerpot and cliff. During daytime you’ll also see many tourist-snorkelers here; snorkeling has become a big draw in the past few years. Liuqiu’s waters offer 20 types of coral and 300 fish species.
After Vase Rock, the three most popular natural attractions are Beauty Cave, Wild Boar Trench, and Black Devil Cave, encountered in that order along the island’s west side, all beside its coastal ring highway. These are the island’s only three paid-entry tourist attractions; NT$120 gets you an all-inclusive ticket.
Beauty Cave is another forceful example of the sea’s power to erode limestone and coral. Inside/outside this seaside cave, you’re presented with an elaborate layout of side caves, grottoes, cliffs, and tidal platforms.
No, no pigs at Wild Boar Trench. What is here are narrow, twisting passageways through massive uplifted-coral crags strangled by gravity-defying cliff-hugging old banyans, and the lush jungle-like flora that thrives in Liuqiu’s harsh nutrient-starved conditions.
There are many tales about the Black Devil Cave name. Most academically sound is that the Dutch, who controlled Taiwan 1624~1662, took revenge on the dark-skinned indigenous Siraya-tribe inhabitants for killing the crews of two Dutch shipwrecks, exterminating many who were hiding in the cave, using burning oil. Today’s islanders, wary of angry spirits, still burn incense here.
The White Lighthouse, on the island’s south summit, was built during the Japanese colonial era in 1929. As well, visit the impressive nearby Century Old Banyan, taking the short path behind it to a majestic clifftop eagle-view prospect. If here toward sunset, head to the close-at-hand ocean-clifftop Sunset Pavilion, where Liuqiu’s premier sundowns are to be seen.
English and Chinese
Baisha Tourist Harbor 白沙觀光港
Black Devil Cave 烏鬼洞
Beauty Cave 美人洞
Century Old Banyan 百年老榕樹
Lingshan Temple 靈山寺
Little Liuqiu 小琉球
Little Liuqiu Visitor Center 小琉球遊客中心
Sunset Pavilion 落日亭
Vase Rock 花瓶岩
Wild Boar Trench 山豬溝
White Lighthouse 白燈塔
{Trip} South Taiwan DONGYUAN FOREST RECREATION AREA (東源森林遊樂區)
A truly special place in southern Taiwan. Refreshing forest, a lake with lotus flowers and wild ginger lilies. Friendly people of the indigenous Paiwan Tribe. Great live music!
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English and Chinese
Biya 比亞
Crying Lake 哭泣湖
Dongyuan Forest Recreation Area 東源森林遊樂區
Dongyuan Lake 東源湖
Dongyuan Wet Grassland 東源水上草原
Ginger Lily Festival 野薑花季
Hengchun Peninsula 恆春半島
Mudan Township 牡丹鄉
Paiwan Tribe 排灣族
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Also watch the latest video on this channel: {Trip} LALASHAN on the Northern Cross-Island Highway (北橫拉拉山)
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Article from Travel in Taiwan 9/10, 2016
Author: Rick Charette
Dongyuan Forest Recreation Area
Mudan Township in Pingtung County is like a “botanical garden,” a hidden-away mountain gem bursting with color where nature is allowed to be herself by her Paiwan Tribe custodians.
As we turned off Pingtung County’s east-west Provincial Highway 9 and headed south along the narrow and twisting, yet well-paved and -maintained County Highway 199, which meanders its way toward the very popular tropical Kenting National Park on Taiwan’s far-south tip, the impression quickly built that this was one of the prettier roads I’d been on in Taiwan.
We were in the deep-south section of Taiwan’s long, thick central-mountain spine. There was thick foliage on both sides; trees leaned over the road as if in welcome, presenting the gift of dappled shade on this bright, hot day. There was a strong scent of blooming flowers and busy butterflies and birds flitted about. Ever so often we’d catch a glimpse of the Pacific to the east, far below and beyond.
We had entered Biya’s world. Mudan Township is Paiwan Tribe country. Our destination was Dongyuan, one member of Taiwan’s southernmost cluster of indigenous settlements. It was early July, this was the first weekend of Dongyuan’s annual Ginger Lily Festival, and Biya (whose Chinese name is Sun Ming-heng) was to be our guide.
Adding to the color of our approach on Highway 199 was a steady stream of huffing, puffing, bright-garbed cyclists headed uphill the other way. Biking has exploded in Taiwan, and the 199 is part of a popular round-island cycle route. Here, on the Hengchun Peninsula’s east side, the coastal highway is interrupted, so riders, literally and figuratively, face an uphill battle when heading north from Kenting National Park.
Biya, decked out in traditional warrior ceremonial garb, met us at the wood-theme entrance to the community’s pride and joy, the Dongyuan Forest Recreation Area (NT$100 entry fee). Before us was a lovely small lake, thick with lily pads and reeds along its sides, bursting with the year’s wild white ginger lily bloom. On the far side was a large grove of tall trees shading a park-like area busy with people.
“Dongyuan is in a mountain depression,” Biya began his introduction. “It is oblong-shaped; the northeast end, where we are, is higher than the southwest end. Roughly speaking, the shape is like a tongue. Our village runs along the middle of the tongue’s north side, along the main road. We use this lake and mahogany-grove area as the tourist entrance to the forest recreation area, which runs higher up along the edge of the tongue behind and down beyond the village. At the tongue’s bottom is a huge bog, the Dongyuan Wet Grassland, which is a protected area.”
The community offers eco/culture tours to visitors (about 2 hours), which take in the lake-perimeter trail, forest grove, village spots, and bog. Biya first took us around the trail, which also goes through the grove, called the Aroma Forest.
“The Dongyuan community is a sub-tribe of the Paiwan Tribe, Taiwan’s second-largest indigenous group. Today we number about 500. The Paiwan have long lived in the hills and mountains of the far south, away from the coasts, for safety.
“The name ‘Dongyuan’ was chosen because we are east of Mudan, the largest area village, and in a headwater catchment depression; so ‘Dongyuan,’ meaning ‘eastern source or fountain. The lake is formally called Dongyuan Lake, but is also called Crying Lake. People believe some sad or mysterious Paiwan tale must be the source, but in fact the reason for the name is that the Chinese for “crying,” kuqi, sounds like the original name ‘Jiaguji.’
“The lake has now been allowed to return to its natural state, and we’ve introduced wild ginger lilies, not here before, for tourism purposes. They’ve long been important in Paiwan culture, used to strengthen stream and pond banks, in herbal medicines, and in our foods. In fact, during the Japanese era, the Mudan area was called Taiwan’s ‘botanical garden’ – wild peonies, wild ginger lilies, and other wildflowers grew in abundance, decorating the landscape.”
Last week we went to the southern tip of Taiwan for a four day trip to Kending (Kenting). Here is the first video, showing you places on the eastern side of the Hengchun Peninsula.
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Music by Steve Combs
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Kangkou Nursery, White Fig Park (白榕園)
Add: No. 457-10, Chashan Rd., Gangkou Village, Manzhou Township,
Pingtung County (屏東縣滿州鄉 港口村茶山路457之10號)
For information about entry to the park, call Ms Zhuang at 0963-522-868
Longpan Restaurant (龍磐餐飲)
Add: No. 13, Kengnei Rd., Kending, Hengchun Township, Pingtung County (屏東縣恆春鎮墾丁坑內路13號)
Tel: (08) 885-1511
Eluanbi 鵝鑾鼻
Gangkou 港口
Hengchun 恆春
Jialeshui Scenic Area 佳樂水風景區
Kending 墾丁
Longpan Park 龍磐公園
Southernmost Point 最南點
Gear used for this video
Camera:
Panasonic Lumix GH4:
Lenses:
PANASONIC LUMIX G X Vario Lens, 12-35mm:
PANASONIC LUMIX G Vario Lens, 100-300mm:
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8:
Panasonic DMW-MS2:
GoPro Session 4 & 5
Travel in Taiwan Jul./Aug. 2017:
East Coast and Eluanbi Peninsula
Like its Maobitou sibling across the way, the Eluanbi peninsula juts from its Hengchun Peninsula anchor pointing south. Its southernmost point is also the Southernmost Point of Taiwan, reached on foot in about 15 minutes from the Highway 26-side parking lot (paid parking), the last 500m along a wide, pleasant path shaded by thick tropical growth, notably various cacti species. You emerge, quite suddenly, right on the jagged, wave-pounded rocky shore, at a lookout deck with an artistic geo-point marker. Neighboring-area sightseeing spots are the historic Eluanbi Lighthouse and pristine Longkeng Ecological Protection Area.
Spread out alongside Highway 26, Longpan Park is not much more than a selfie-stop for most – move beyond the roadside parking lots to the most popular lookout points, however, and you’ll be rewarded with what to your writer are Kenting’s most magnificent visuals, save perhaps for the color-circus of its snorkeling/diving excursions. The eagle-vantage views from the coastal clifftops, with their disintegrating cliff sections (off-limits), wave-pounded reefs below, river-mouth Chashan village to the north beyond, mountain after mountain falling into the sea beyond that, are stunning. Watch for water buffalo and sika deer having a grassy meal on the cliff-base close-cropped grassy areas.
Note: Beyond selfies, this is by far the national park’s most in-demand location for wedding-photo shoots, TV-commercial shoots, etc.
North of Longpan, Highway 26 ends at a T-intersection. Turn right for almost immediate entry into Jialeshui (entry fee). This isolated, cliff-backed 2.5km stretch of coastline is one of Taiwan’s premier geological classrooms. Tours are given on open-sided golf-cart-style buses, drivers explaining (in Chinese) the three different geological layers clearly discerned, most notably pointing out the nature-carved outcroppings of the sandstone stratum, once on the sea bottom, resembling such familiar figures as the hare, frog, and seahorse.
Back at the T-intersection, inexpensive eateries line the periphery of a large parking lot. Beside this lot is a ticket booth, at the head of a picture-perfect pedestrian bridge that shoots across the river mouth here. Purchase a ticket to access the eco-park across. Better yet, call the Gangkou Community Development Association (09-6352-2868) three days in advance for a guided tour of the park (fee), learning among other precious things where/how/why the many local crab species dig “secret” homes, and also visiting the restricted White Banyan Tree Park. The magnificent old Japanese-planted banyans here are featured in Life of Pi, with special-effects help, when Pi comes across a magical floating “island,” exposed roots everywhere.
Hengchun Township 恆春鎮 Kenting - Taiwan - Jack & Louise Vlog e40
We travel to Hengchun old town, 恆春鎮 in Kenting (墾丁) and see what it has to offer... apart from giant stuffed cocks.
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1. AK - Wanderlust
2. Andrew Applepie - Antarctica feat. Redhead Gang
Xiaoliuqiu, Taiwan | Beach | Snorkeling
Date : September, 04-06, 2015
Location : Liuqiu Township, Pingtung County 929, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Camera : SONY TX-10