Green Island (綠島)

Green Island (綠島), is a small volcanic island located off the eastern coast of Taitung, Taiwan. It was once a prisoner’s island whereby hardcore criminals and political prisoners were locked up here on the island. But now there is only one prison left, with the rest of them converted to museums and tourist attractions. Renovated works can still be seen at some of the previous government buildings.

4th May 2008, 5am, Taipei.
We woke up to our hand phone alarm for our day journey to Green Island, 綠島. Even it was 5am, the skies and sights of the streets seemed like 7am in Singapore if you minus off the vehicles on the road. From Xingmengding, we made our way to the railway station to catch our train ride at 6:30am to Taitung.. Made a visit to the 24hr MacDonald to get our breakfast-on-the-go. In the end, we took our McMuffins while waiting at the railway platform for our train. The train arrived on schedule and off we went for 5.5hrs of train ride along the east coast. This wasn’t an express train and hence there were many stops along the way. We needed to arrive early to catch our ferry to Green island and thus had no choice but to take the earliest train leaving from Taipei to Taitung. The train itself wasn’t new but the leg space is better than that of an economy plane seat. After 3 hours of traveling, we reached the city of Hualien. The train stopped for about 10mins at the station. The sights and sounds of the train brought back memories when we set foot there back in April 2006. The rest of the journey was through the sparely populated towns that decorated along the famous East Coast Rift valley. This is long stretch of fertile land, with many of the land being reserved for rice growing. In winter when the weather is cooler, the paddy fields will be filled with yellow rape flowers that blanket the entire rift valley.

At 12:15pm, we arrived at the Taitung train station. The station itself is strangely located away from the town centre, with undeveloped lands around the station itself. You would ask “where is the town ?”. There is a visitor centre counter at the train station and 7-eleven. In Taiwan, convenient stores like 7-eleven and Family Mart are virtually everywhere. We needed to get to Fugang harbor and my initial plan was to hire a taxi. But since there was time, I did try to see if there are public buses to take. Yes there is, but the frequency is very limited and destination may be the town centre only. No one seems to want to take the bus as locals have people to pick them up in cars or scooter. The bus service seemed to be just to show tourists that they have an option to choose. But from the lines of empty taxi queuing and cabby uncles touting around, tourists going to Fugang harbor are at their mercy. A cabby uncle came along offer NT300 for a trip to Fugang Harbor. They could tell the looks of a tourist like us going to Green Island. Maybe I was wearing sandals and bermuda. For taxi congregating together and not running the fare by the meter, I just hoping that the cabby we chosen would not be overcharging us too much. Normally there is a fixed fare among those touting cabbies. Once in the taxi, the driver speeded through the quiet roads towards the harbor. The speed could easily hit 100km/h. It took about 15mins of speeding and the distance was quite far. NT300 didn’t sound too ridiculous in the end.

At 12:40pm, we arrived at Fugang harbor. The homestead (民宿) that we had pre-booked on Green island had made ferry booking for us at a discounted rate. Buying ferry tickets directly over the counter cost a lot more (around NT1000). The ferry terminal building itself has an odd name called 候船室。In Chinese, it means “ a room at the ship’s rear”. This is the place where we collected our 2-way tickets. We just tell the staff over the counter my name and the name of our Minsu that has made the booking for us. Our ferry was scheduled at 1:30pm, and we spent the remaining time on lunch. We ordered some sashimi, fried rice and bean sprouts. At 1:30pm, we were boarding the ferry to Green island. There were 2 ferries going to the same place. Even though our tickets mentioned which ferry to take, the ferry staff at the berth didn’t bother. We choose the less crowded one and it was really very less crowded. We almost have the entire ferry to ourselves. From Fugang to Green island, it was an hour ride. The sea was initially calm and got choppy when we were nearing the island. During the typhoon seasons, ferry services would be disrupted, and residents on the island were isolated from the mainland. It was common for the islanders to stock up on food and supplies to last them through the typhoon period.

Around 2:30pm, we were docked at Nanliao Bay (南寮漁港). The pier was bustling with people waiting to board the ferry back to the mainland, and people from the homestead (minus) receiving their guests with name cards showing off the names of their respective minus. We spotted our guy and he immediately asked me if I am who I am. He was also looking for another family group. We were led to a mini truck which he instructed us to load our bags. We were only carrying a small backpack and I was having this thought in mind that all of us would hop onto the back on the truck like livestock pigs. Unfortunately that was not the case. Well I saw a small truck carrying a group of youngsters to the harbor when we disembarked from the ferry. In a short while the harbor started to return to a state of calm as the ferry left for the mainland. Together with our host, we walked a very short distance to collect our scooter. This is the main and most convenient transportation on the island. I was amazed at the long rows of silvery scooter paraded along the road. Scooters were already pre-allocated by the half naked mechanics to our minus host. The condition of the scooter did not look very good, but in fact they were well-maintained and quite powerful. Knowing that we are not Taiwanese, the minus host spent some time explaining to me how the scooter works. Well, the mechanics of how the scooter works is different from a motorcycle. I just needed the know-how of how to electric start and pump petrol. No one really checks if you have a valid motorbike license, as long as you wear a helmet and know how to ride a scooter. There is this different ruling for the wearing of safety helmet. The islanders need not have to wear them, but as tourists or non-islanders, you need to wear them because the local policeman will drop a fine on you for not doing so. If you don’t know how to ride a scooter, there is always this 4-seater golf buggy that can be rented instead. A safety note for those who knows how to ride a bicycle but don’t have any driving license. You may think yes it is just like an electric bicycle. But you really have to know when to and when not to throttle the engine. In green island, there are lots of nasty bends and steep slopes that can be quite dangerous.

After collecting my scooter, we were off to the petrol station to top up our scooter. Well, there wasn’t much petrol left. There was a queue at the petrol station; all were holiday makers from the last ferry. The petrol station was manned by 2 teenage girls. With the recent hike in oil prices, petrol was still cheaper in Taiwan compared to Singapore. A full tank on my scooter needed only 2.5 litres, at a cost of NT30 per litres. I paid NT80 for my full tank and I paid in coins. After that, it was a follow-the-leader as we rode our scooter behind our minsu’s host mini truck. Riding the scooter along the mountainous coastline was very enjoyable. The sound of the wind, the waves brought back memories when I was doing national service in Taiwan, riding our 185cc military motorcycle in Taiwan. Our minus (民宿) was located on the other side of the island, in the small village of Wenquan (溫泉村). After “chasing” the truck for 20mins, we arrived at our 2 night’s accommodation. We were given the top-floor single room with a clear open view of the unobstructed sea.

Not wasting any time, armed with our cameras, we saddled up on our scooter and rammed the throttle of our scooter around the island. The skies were still cloudy with strong winds at some of the winding roads. We started going clockwise around the island, bypassing the NanLiao harbor again. At that moment, the harbor was really deserted. Even the souvenir shops at the pier has closed. We rode our scooter into the only town of NanLiao. The town is just a single road with shop houses on both sides of the road. On the first sight of the 7-eleven store, we parked at the front of store and off to a cup of SLURPEE. That ‘s my wife favorite. For the rest of the day, we were just throttling around the island. This was the time in our entire Taiwan trip that we did the minimum walking. Everyway we go was on our scooter.

At 6pm, it was time to head out to look for dinner. Minsu does not provide dinner. We set off from our minsu towards the town again to look for dinner. Green Island has a limited dinner choices for travelers, which is BBQ. On our way to town, we came across quite a number of open-air BBQ outlets. In the end at 7pm, we chose 阿明燒烤, a BBQ shop near the NanLiao harbor. It was all just frozen food and the taste was below average. The owner of the shop couldn’t tell that we are not Taiwanese. Can say it is not that easier to tell the differences. We did offer our translation service for the owner to some Aussie ladies that patronize the shop. Only then the owner released that we are from Singapore after we told them that we are not locals. Knowing we had a night tour provided by our homestead host at 8pm, we left the BBQ shop at 7:45pm. I sped all the way on our 125cc scooter. Once we left the town area, it was darkness all the way. We could only hear the sounds of the waves lashing on the rocks. With the single headlamp on our scooter to illuminate the road, we sped through the coastal roads. A remembrance of the days while I was riding my military scrambler bike in some Taiwan mountain in the middle of the night. At exactly 8pm, we reached our minus and with just a toilet break in our room, we were off on our scooter following our hosts to do some star gazing, stick insects hunting, sika deer spotting, and night visit to the ex-prison area. It wasn’t spooky or eerie; but you could see lines of headlamps from the many groups of night tour visitors on their scooters, lighting up the steep mountain roads like a long dragon. It was said that on a clear night, people on mainland taitung can see trails of lights floating on the island. This is not some paranormal happenings, but the night tours on scooters.

5th May 2008, Tuesday.

At 4:30am, we woke up to the sky lighting up. We wanted to catch the morning sunrise that on a clear skies morning, we can actually see it rising from the horizon. In 30mins, we were wiping away the morning dew on our seat of our scooter. We charged our scooter to the little hill just beside the seawater hot spring (朝日溫泉). Unfortunately the horizon was obscured with clouds, and we could see that the sun was trying to break through the clouds. In the end, we did manage to catch the sunrise but only when it was some distance from the horizon.

There were actually people soaking themselves in the hot spring waiting for the spectacular moment on the sunrise. That is how the name of the hot spring came about. 朝日溫泉，in Chinese means “hot spring of the rising sun”. When the sun broke through the clouds, the entire island started to brighten up. Since the previous day wasn’t a good day for outdoor photography, we made another trip round the island.

Taking the anti-clockwise direction, we made a stop on the mountain road overlooking the coastal rock structure. This rock structure is named the “Sleeping Beauty” and the “Pekinese Dog”. After that, we proceeded to the area where we spotted the wild Sika Deer sanctuary hopping to spot another deer in broad daylight. Did not get to see one there, but the sunny morning sun and it was starting to get real warm.

Around 8am, we arrived at the green island lighthouse. The road leading to the lighthouse wasn’t that obvious. The directional signage was placed at a low height on a wall facing an awkward direction. The road was jammed between 2 small houses on the main road. After taking a few shots, we were feeling hungry and made our way back to our homestead for breakfast. We chatted with our minsu hosts over many things and after a delicious meal; we lazed around the minsu playing around with the dog.

At around 10am, we were off on our scooter to tour the island again, hoping to catch better scenery with the fine weather.

After a short 10mins ride, we were back at Da-Ba-Sha (大白鯊), which is another diving site. It was low tide and we could walk till the end of a stone path with pockets of trapped seawater on both sides of the path.

There were small fishes, hermit crabs and funny looking sea-creatures. The wildlife here is very much undisturbed and the beach is not suitable for swimming with all the rocks and strong waves when comes to high tide. There are still places to swim, like the little harbor just in front our homestead, which normally empty and protected from the strong waves. We took our time at the low-tide beach until it got too warmed. We made our way to the lighthouse again, hoping to get more scenic shots as the morning trip there was in a rush. Along the way, the sunny fine weather just disappears, replaced by high grey clouds coming in from the south-east.

At 11:30am, we reached the lighthouse area which is beside the island’s only airport runway. The thick clouds were coming in fast and the wind was picking up. There was a group of teenage girls on scooter as well at the lighthouse area as well, posing for their friends with the typical V-sign pose. An opportunity to ask them to help us take a picture. It was already drizzling then and the rain was starting to get heavier. We were riding with the wind and rain on us as we sped through the only road in the town to the petrol station for another fuel top-up. With the light rain still falling, we decided to head out to the Family Mart convenient store for a simple lunch of instant noodle and tidbits just to wait for the rain to stop. There were nice benches and tables at the back of the store just by the sea.

When the rain stopped, we visited the once prison, now turned museum, 綠洲山莊. . It was said that previous political convicts were sent to this prison for re-education. The place was quite deserted except for a few visitors. Maybe it was lunch time. We entered into the once restricted and protected prison cells. All the cells were renovated with new tiling and some even have an artistic theme in the form of an exhibition of creativity. Artwork was painted on the walls and artistic visual representations were hanged along the corridors. Maybe it was my lack of art appreciation, but to me, those paper-cut shapes hanging from the ceiling gave me an eerie feeling of convicts being hanged. When we left the prison cell complex, the prison grounds started to get some life. A bus load of tourist consistent of grandpa and grandmas were visiting the prison compound. You may wonder why there are buses on the island. The island needs to provide another form for transportation for the elderly when it comes to visiting the tourist attractions. The bus was old and badly maintain, with much help from the coastal breeze that corrode most metals to rust.

At 2pm, we left the prison museum and headed to the Sika Deer Ecological Park. The park is located in the hilly areas of Green Island, just 5mins of scooter ride from the prison museum. The weather was still unstable at that time, with the skies are cloudy but luckily no rain. We bought tickets (NT100/pax) to enter the park. From the number of scooters parked outside the park, we were the only visitors at that time. One of the staff from the park gave us a personalized and detailed tour of the park, explaining to us everything about the deers and the park itself. We bought some grass feeds for the deer at the enclosed area. The deers were really excited and readied for our feeding. These deers have become too accustomed to visitors feeding. The park guide has a mini schnauzer that tagged along with us as we toured around the park. The dog was very smart and it led the way before the park guide could say a word to where we would be touring next.

We left the park and throttled our scooter back to the town’s 7-eleven for some light snacking. After that, we headed back to our minsu and napped till dinner. At 6pm, dinner was again BBQ, but this time we checked with our minsu host on which was the best BBQ shop on the island. To get there, we rode our scooter up the hills again with our only headlamp. Around that time, the sun had gone down and the wind was blowing strong. We were welcomed by the sounds of many customers and KTV singing at the BBQ shop. We got a table near the entrance where the wind was still blowing. At many times, our food got a little over-burned. The food wasn’t that fantastic, but it was definitely better than the day before. Well, all these food were frozen food. At the shop, I had a sense of nostalgia. The diners were singing Taiwanese oldies of the 80s and with the colorful fluorescent lamps and tungsten light bulbs; time was really frozen in the 1980s. The feeling was surreal but I bet I would enjoy my meal better without the screeching voice of the auntie trying to hit the high notes. Applauds were given unselfishly by her friends, and encore was cheering by the crowds. After filing our stomach with food and getting our ears cleaned out, we hopped onto our scooter and ride off into the darkness up the hills again to the other side of the island. This was a shorted route when compared to the town road that goes round the island to reach our minsu. At 9pm, we left our minsu and decided to go to the sea-water hot spring just 10mins ride from our minsu. The wind was blowing even stronger and it was getting colder. The seawater hot spring is located very near the sea. From the changing rooms of the hot spring building, we walked about 100m towards the sea and soaked ourselves in the circular pool structure of warm seawater hot spring. You need to be in your swim gear to visit the hot spring for hygiene purpose. It was just lukewarm and wasn’t hot at all. I was quite disappointed with the pool itself. There were 3 pools there. Only one pool had lightings provided. Feeling disappointed with the temperature of the pool, we switched pools. No one was in the 2 other pools. The people there just go for the one with the lightings. We thought it was just the light and wouldn’t mind the other ones even without the lightings. When we went into the pool, the water temperature was even colder. It actually felt cold to our body. In the end, we just settled for the best of the worst. After 30mins of soaking in the lukewarm hot spring, we braced the cold strong winds in our swimming gear and hurriedly scrambled back to the changing rooms. We rode our scooter back to minsu and turned in for the night.

6th May 2008, 8am.
Today is the day we would be leaving Green Island and heading back to Taipei. Breakfast was served at the minsu (picture on left). We had omelet and tea. After breakfast, we loitered in the minsu while the owner was busy cleaning up the rooms. Our ferry was scheduled at 12:30pm. There was still time to roam around the island. The petrol in our scooter was getting low, but it should be able to get us back to the pier. After we bid goodbyes to our hosts, we were off again on our scooter back to town.

As there was still time, we made a stop at the Sika Deer park again to feed the deers. The tickets that were bought yesterday allowed us to come back again the next day for the second visit. At 11:30am, we continued our way to the pier bypassing the airport and town route. To return the scooter, we just rode it to the pier area and park it near the place where we picked them up. Some visitors just ride all the way to the pier and leave the scooter there. Somehow, the islanders had a way to organize this mass pool of scooters. Our ferry came on scheduled and we slept all the way in the crowded ferry to Fugang Harbor. Our minsu host had arranged for us a taxi to bring us to town and later the train station. We had a train to catch at 5:20pm, so there was time to walk around in Taitung city. The city itself was more like a town. It was much smaller compared to Hualien. There weren’t any tall or even average height buildings. It was a typical Taiwanese town with rows of shop houses lining the streets. We ended up at KFC to have our lunch and just lazed in the restaurant until it was time to call our taxi driver to pick us up to the train station.

The train we had booked was an express service type, only stopping at Hualien and then it was all the way to Taipei. Making this train service the fastest one to reach Taipei from Taitung. Around 10:15pm, we were backed at Taipei. It was raining then and the weather was cold. We were looking inappropriate in our sandals and Bermudas. With a tanned brown look, it was as if we had just come from another world. We checked into our hotel at 11pm, packed our bags and readied for the next day trip back to Singapore.