Day 6: Yuli 玉里 > Doulan 都蘭
Stay: Doulan Hostel
The bike ride leaving Yuli is all uphill. It's on a road called 台30 -- Taiwan Interstate 30 -- which terminates at the peak. At the peak, a tunnel connects through to the Hualien County (I'm still in Hualien!) all the way to Taitung County (台東, Taiwan East). Consequently, the bike ride up is one of the most difficult stretches I've had to ride thus far. It's cloudy and cool today, which helps. But, rain seems just around the corner.
The first 10 kilometers or so gets me out of Yuli Township. I pass by some of the hot springs that were recommended to me the night before, and quietly pass by in dismay seeing as I won't get to take a dip Then, begins the uphill. With the pannier bags weighing the back of my bike down, and the incline, I am traveling at 3 kilometers an hour. It's slow. But it's not tough. In low gear, each stride takes me one step closer to the top. When I am tired, I push myself a bit, and stop to take a rest. When I rest, my concentration breaks. I notice that the foliage has changed dramatically around me and take a sip of water. It's just me on this mountain for miles, and I haven't seen a car in over an hour. When I am more rested, I push off and continue. Again, I forget everything. Everything around me temporarily disappears into the background and I desensitize to my surroundings. I tune my breath to the bicycle's stride, and before I know it, I am at the top. It only took 2 hours.
My concentration breaks. The top is the best place to be. I can look back and see how much I've accomplished. It's symbolic in the sense that it feels like I accomplished something. Something that, maybe one year ago, I'd never thought I'd do but decided to do, and something that I may honestly never do again. It's still just me on that road, and I haven't seen a car yet.
The tunnel is embedded into the consciousness of the Taiwanese. Due to the geology of Taiwan, many of the major roads connecting civilizations lined along the west and east coast of Taiwan are done through tunnels; tunnels that have connected populations. Many constructions were thanks to the Japanese, who built many predecessors to the roads we see in Taiwan today due to the need for shipping and transporting wood and other goods in the mid 20th-century. There must be something satisfying about a tunnel. How, instead of building around nature, we've somehow managed to conquer it by blowing through it. Since often they're the only routes through to the major cities, many people will know of the major tunnels -- in the same way one would know about the major highways, perhaps -- of the Island. In my first day biking, I took an old tunnel route to skip a chunk of the Yilan coastal border so I can get to Toucheng faster. And, after I've reached the peak, I would take Taiwan Interstate 30.
Biking through the tunnel is more exhilarating than approaching it, simply because you get to cruise. You don't have to bike too fast. I enter with baited breath. As I bike for 3 minutes, both ends of the tunnel are barely in sight and just a small speck in either direction. A car approaches, finally. Something I haven't heard in a couple hours. The adrenaline of having something approach you from behind and get closer only audibly is both terrifying and exciting. A sonic wave approaches me from behind and gets louder, and its lights become more visible. Up to the very point before it passes me it is as loud as the sea, and as vast. I am speeding down the highway so fast and I catch the tailwind of the car as I watch the lights speed off, the sound disappearing. I am in the zone. The vortex of the tunnel and the rush that comes with it sucks me in and I am desensitized again to my surroundings. It's just me and the road.
As the other end approaches, and turns from the small speck of white to a larger marble, pizza, orb, then sky, I am finally out on the other side. There is a huge sign that indicates a viewing area, so I stop and take a picture.
I take a picture, just to commemorate this moment. I take out my cellphone and do a selfie. As I'm fuddling with the angle, a car pulls up next to me. An older man and woman get out of the car. They look about 60, and appear to be a standard Taiwanese couple. The man smiles at me and then begins to talk. He asks me if I just biked the 30 and I said yes. He bursts into excitement, and so does his wife. He offers to take a picture for me with the sign, and so I hand him my camera to do so. He's still excited from the fact that I just biked through the tunnel. "I can't believe it! How exciting! Where are you headed next?" I tell him my plan to stop tonight in Doulan for the night.
The man asks me what I'm doing tonight. I tell him I expect myself to be in Doulan, but maybe go straight to Taitung (台東) if I have time. He says if I have time, there's an event happening tonight just a little before Doulan, about 3 kilometers out. The event is a showcase of aboriginal culture in Taiwan. It consists of some independent brands and stalls that set up their shops selling various goods and trinkets and food -- mostly run by aboriginals. At night, there is a concert that is performed mostly in Hokkien, Hakka, and Aboriginal languages (as a note, the national language is Mandarin and these are considered minority languages, so it's in general a celebration of minority culture). The event is at the aboriginal cultural center, and he says to me that they only do this every 2 days of the month so they can coincide it with the full moon. He highly recommends it and talks to me about it for 10 minutes, and tells me how to get there. He even finds the electronic flyer for me and sends it to me via AirDrop - there is still signal up here. As I've learned on the road, when the road calls, I just go.
On the way down to Doulan, I come across the center where the event is to be held. It's about 15:00. There is a small cafe which I go in to grab a drink, and I enquire about the event tonight. The lady tells me that the event only starts at 19:30 at around-sunset, but that there is a bus that can pick me up from Doulan and bring me to the event. I chat with the ladies for about 15 minutes while enjoying me whatever-organic-fresh-squeezed-high-pulp lemonade business, and continue my bike to Doulan. Soon after, I reach.
When I get to the hostel and settle down, I put my things out to dry as I've encountered another rainy day near the last stretch. The hostel is considerably more "hippie", as Doulan is known to be -- as I came to discover -- as a surfer town. Actually, there was visibly more white people there, but the kind that are washed up and end up in Southeast Asia (think barefoot on the road, dreadlocks, etc.). Not the kind that were in Asia for any particular interest of Asia, at least it seemed. I grab a meal at the local restaurant nearby which has an English menu, a telltale sign that there is some sort of tourism in this town. I talk to the local shopowners and they said that within the past few years, Doulan has come to be known as a pretty big surfing destination since they hosted some surfing tournaments in the past. I chat with them for a bit and they tell me how the township has changed from a fly-by area to having a small tourist circle of its own. So different than Yuli, the Township where I was just this morning, which looked like tourism had skipped it completely (except for that noodle shop, which was delicious).
Doulan is a one-street town, and so after walking around directionless in both directions, I head back to the hostel to shower and go to the event. As I finish and I'm drying up, I meet a guy in the hostel in the same floor as me. He is a part-time surfer and a full time opera singer, which we discuss for a while. As we part ways, I ask him what plans he has tonight. It just so turns out that he's also going to go to the aboriginal culture center as well, and so we end up going together. That's fate, I guess.
I won't go into the details of the event. I'll just say, it was nothing I thought it'd be, but everything I could have asked for. All of the stalls were owned and operated by aboriginal folks of various ages trying to promote aboriginal culture. The performance was also stunning, it was a mix of aboriginal folklore and song and dance for the performance part. Very tribal music, and purely chanting and riffs of the throat to showcase their talent. They sang with the breath of Taiwan in long tranches that lasted more than 10 seconds each. Halfway through the night, some of his other friends came and they had told me the biked around the island before, too, and so we were sharing stories about places to go, and the things that I saw. As we sat on the mountaintop with a few drinks, watching the band, and looking out into the full moon reflecting onto the water, the Feng Shui (風水) felt right. No wonder that man had told me to go tonight, and I'm glad I took his suggestion.