Around the Island in 25 Days

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Mads Vesterager Nielsen

A once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage around Taiwan by motorbike

“Before they die,” Zhang, my friend in Taipei, told me when I arrived in the city, “a Taiwanese person should achieve three things: Swim in the Sun and Moon Lake, visit the highest peaks of the island, but most importantly…”

He paused for dramatic affect.

“… finish a huandao .”

In Taiwan, to travel around the island, or huandao (环岛), has become a ritual symbolizing freedom and life for many ordinary people. Whether on foot, bicycle, motorbike, or even train, the journey has been portrayed in countless movies, thoroughly embedding a huandao trip as a dream people of all ages yearn to make a reality within their lifetimes.

Late last year, I embarked on a huandao of my own around Taiwan, to explore the island and meet people along the way.

A ritual of freedom and life

Huandao , literally meaning to circle the island, was popularized with the 2007 movie Island Etude , in which a young man circles Taiwan on a bicycle in a mind-boggling seven days. This has created the misconception that mere days is all it takes to go around the island, although the shortest route to huandao still stretches around 1,000 kilometers—possible, but only if you don’t do much other than cycling. Prior to the 2007 movie, bikers, hitchhikers, and long-distance trekkers also set out on the circular route along the coast of Taiwan, but the movie inculcated the concept for future generations to emulate.

“If you don’t live fully now, you may never get the chance again!” goes the catchphrase in the movie’s trailer. With Island Etude , huandao was catapulted into the collective Taiwan consciousness, and now thousands of travelers make their way around the island each year — even foreigners like myself. To locals, the trip around the island is usually a long-awaited pilgrimage that may be realized during a summer vacation, a sabbatical from work, after graduation, or during retirement.

I was not about to bicycle around the island though. Instead, I opted for a motorized version. I had purchased the 125cc scooter from a second-hand motorbike shop just off the railway station in downtown Taoyuan, west of Taipei. “It’s as good as new,” the motorbike shopkeeper said. “I frequently drive it myself!” He painted up the rusty parts of the motorbike chassis anyway before handing it over to me.

“You are just gonna drive it around Taoyuan and Taipei, right?” he asked.

“I might go a bit further than that,” I answered before heading out.

On a cool November morning, I hit the road to commence a clockwise huandao trip. There are three major options for traversing the island. The first option goes counter-clockwise, going south from Taipei through the major urban areas of Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung on Taiwan’s western plains all the way down to the southern tip at Kenting , before going back up the less populated and picturesque eastern shore. My clockwise option is slightly more challenging, as it means taking in the frothing jungles and nature on the eastern side of the island first.

The last option was usually only recommended for those who had done a huandao before: to drive north to south over the central mountains over a far more demanding and steep road, with stunning displays of nature throughout. The island of Taiwan itself is just under 400 kilometers tip-to-tip, and I expected to finish the trip in about a month—with many stops, planned and unplanned, along the way.

I drove north toward the coast, zipping through villages in the flatlands between Taoyuan and Taipei before I hit the coastal Road 61 that would take me to the island’s northernmost point. Under the morning sun, a cool breeze came blowing in from the Taiwan Strait, where ships were sailing to and fro through one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, where it’s estimated that over 21 percent of global trade—3.4 trillion US dollars’ worth—passes through.

Taking a ferry across a fjord, I disembark near Fugui Cape , Taiwan’s northernmost point. Fishermen are fishing from the black rocks and cliffs on the edge of the waters. “There’s enough to catch here,” one fisherman told me, “but you have to be patient.” His name was Chih-Hung and he was 54 years old. He had been up fishing since 7 in the morning to secure a good spot at Fugui Cape, and beside him there was a bucket that held two large fish.

Wanli UFO Village

On day two of my huandao , the landscape turned increasingly rural, with clusters of houses and townships that littered the hills on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Close to the city of Jilong I stopped by the beach. Rumor had it that strange-looking UFO-shaped houses were to be found in an abandoned holiday resort there. I scaled a fence and immediately caught sight of the peculiar structures, which protruded from the low shrubbery and were framed by palms and other trees by the shore.

It looked like aliens had landed flying saucers here decades ago and abandoned them, perhaps to join the peaceful tropical island life on the outskirts of Jilong. There was a staircase leading up to the door of one house. I pitched my foot on the handrail of the stairs and crawled over. The waves from the ocean caused a low insistent noise that was only broken when they collapsed onto the yellow sands of the Jilong beaches.

The decor of this “UFO house” looked like something straight out of a 1970s James Bond movie. The houses seem to owe their inspiration to the Futuro house, or Futuro pod, a round, prefabricated house designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen. Fewer than 100 Futuro homes were built during the late ’60s and ’70s. Here, the floor cracks under my feet and I watch my step, careful not to be impaled by rusty nails or glass shards that litter the insides of the houses.

“Hey you!” A voice yelled from outside. “Get out of there!” I managed to awkwardly crawl back over the fence while the man, wearing an open shirt, gray shorts, and flip-flops, observed me from the side of the road.

After convincing him that I was not there to steal or break anything, he lowered his voice.

I bade farewell to Cheung and headed for Jilong, where I ate goose noodle soup with ginger and chili sauce. Then I turned southeast. Zhang, my friend in Taipei, had told me about a mysterious “cat village“ in the mountains south of there.

Houtong Cat Village

In the afternoon I reached the rumored Houtong, which is nestled in a valley between the mountains on the shore of a rocky river that lazily runs its course through the village. Stray cats were laying in the grass, some obstructing traffic. A good few were standing by the door to a local museum, causing some confusion for visitors as they calmly watched the automatic doors open and close. In Houtong, felines were numerous and in charge.

The feline theme of the village was ignited by a local cat lover, who in 2008 wanted to create a safe haven for abandoned and stray cats. “A café owner began showing pictures and videos of cats on social media and it kinda took off from there,” says a visitor, named Leung-Chih, who took the high-speed train directly to Houtong from Taipei. Local volunteers have posted the cats’ pictures online, resulting in an overwhelming response from Taiwan's cat lovers.

Prior to 2008, the village was only known by its past as a coal mining hub of northern Taiwan. The Japanese established a mining colony here when they ruled the island in the 1920s. During their heyday, the mines produced around 220,000 tons of coal per year—by far the largest on the island.

Now, branded as Cat Village, Houtong has been revived from its post-industrial slump. The period after the mines closed down saw both capital and young people escape Houtong, but after the cat takeover, young people are returning in droves. One visitor alleges that the cat village was part of the reason why a high-speed railway stop was built, at the otherwise unremarkable Houtong, making the trip from Taipei more accessible to youngsters, though I wasn’t able to verify this.

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