Completing the Circuit

Oh and an update on running - so I finished my circuit around the island, yay! We ended up living in 4 of the 6 villages so that helped in terms of changing the starting location. In the last two days, I realized I still had a ton of road to cover, and so I really got to it. Here are the pictures from my run (over 2 hours, though I stopped to take pictures regularly) around the southern tip of the island:

It was a cloudy day for once in Lanyu, which helped keep things cool even late morning:

View of Small Lanyu island (小蘭嶼) from the dock. 小蘭嶼 is uninhabited and used for target practice by the Taiwanese military.

View of the dock:

There's a nuclear waste facility on the southern part of the island as well. Apparently in the 1970s, the Taiwanese government tricked the illiterate governor of Lanyu into signing over some land for this purpose - the unfortunate governor thought the land was to be developed as a national park. Protests occured in the 90s, and the islanders blockaded the port to prevent further shipments of nuclear waste from coming in, but nothing yet has been done to remove the waste thus far. Here is the entrance to the facility:

Curious enough, a fairly nice residence seems to be next to the facility as well:

Some older, unoccupied buildings are next door:

The road around the southern tip is more treacherous and may be subject to falling rocks. My first time in the area was on motorbike at night, and it was downright scary. You still can't help but be in awe as you pass by:

After completing my journey, I had no energy to continue on to the village. Luckily, I managed to hitchike with a nice lady on a motorbike. She brought me to Dongqing even though she was only going to Yeyin.

Here is the excursion across the northwestern area (probably the most windy part of the island), which happened later that afternoon:

Interesting (and perhaps unfortunate) graffiti:

Large caves were accessible for exploration but I had no time:

The road and the mountain bends in strange ways:

Just on the run around the southern tip, the clouds and fog threatened to invade the landscape:

The port at Yeyou:

The only gas station on the island:

One more major bend to cover...

The airstrip... And airport...

Passing by a map of Lanyu on the road...

By the time I got back, I was soaked - I was sweating, and it was raining outside...

The next day, I went up the mountains once more to take some final pictures. These are all shots of the western side of the island, of the villages Yuuren and Hongtou: