Orchid Island or Lanyu (蘭嶼 Lán yǔ) is a beautiful island in Taitung County off the coast of Taitung.
Villages
[edit]
The main area for hotels is Hongtou Village, a couple of kilometers southeast of the airport.
Other destinations
[edit]Understand
[edit]Its population is about 5,000, mostly indigenous Taiwanese of the Tao (formerly known as Yami) ethnic group, not Han Chinese. Most people live in one of the six villages along the coastal road that traverses the island's perimeter.
Talk
[edit]The main local language on the island is the Yami language, an Austronesian language closely related to languages spoken in northern Philippines. However, most younger locals are also able to speak Mandarin.
Get in
[edit]By plane
[edit]
- 1 Lanyu Airport (KYD IATA 蘭嶼航空站), ☏ +886 8 973 2220. Daily Air (website in Chinese only) has around 6 flights a day from Taitung to Orchid Island's airport on the central west coast. You can easily become stranded on the island for days when winds pick up even during non typhoon weather. Daily Air will cancel flights when the winds are even as low as 35 miles per hour. The flight from Taitung takes about 25 minutes.
| Taitung → Lanyu | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | 08:30 | 09:30 | 10:20 | 11:10 | 13:00 | 13:45 | 14:40 | 15:35 |
| Lanyu → Taitung | ||||||||
| Time | 09:25 | 10:20 | 11:10 | 11:55 | 13:50 | 14:40 | 15:30 | 16:30 |
| Remarks:Refer to the Daily Air website for the most up-to-date schedule and announcements. | ||||||||
By ferry
[edit]You can also take a ferry from Taitung or Kenting, but the seas can be very rough. The journey time for both ferries is about 2 hours.
- 2 Lanyu Kaiyuan Harbor (蘭嶼開元漁港). Ferries run from Taitung City's Fugang Fishery Harbor year round, while in the summer, there is a ferry from Houbihu port in Kenting.
Get around
[edit]There are basically only two roads on the island - the loop road following the coast circumnavigating the island, and the mountain road, dissecting the island in two (east-west).
Other than walking, the only practical means of transport for tourists is hiring a scooter. These can be hired from an area next to the ferry port, which is also the location of the only petrol station on the island.
- 1 Lanyu Yun-Chen Motorcycle Rental (蘭嶼雲晨機車出租-), ☏ +886 915 554 717. 08:30-16:30.
Hitch hiking is also possible, although you may have long waits between rides due to the low number of vehicles on the roads.
See
[edit]Visit churches: Christianity is pretty big here; each of the six villages on the island has exactly one Catholic and one Protestant church. (The Protestant ones are larger and in better repair.) Access and times of services vary. Ask around!
- 1 Orchid Island Weather Station (蘭嶼氣象站) (on the highest point of the island), ☏ +886 8 973 2587. Daily 06:00-18:00. A good place to see the whole island from one place and can help to orient yourself for your journey around the other attractions.
- 2 Lanyu Lighthouse (蘭嶼燈塔) (on the northernmost point of the island). A 15-m-tall lighthouse, built in 1982.
Parks and nature
[edit]- 3 Dragon Head Rock (龍頭岩), Huandao Road. 24hrs.
- 4 Lover Cave (情人洞). A natural stone archway with association with young love.
- 5 Jimavonot (火把岩), Right next to the road in the north-east of the island, about 1 km east of Iraraley. 24hrs. A rock arch and rock pillar, sometimes associated with male and female anatomy. Hence known by names like Couple Rock, Ying and Yang Rock, Virgin/Maiden Rock, or more innocent names like Torch Rock. The Tao name Jimavonot means reed bundle.
- 6 Datienchih (大天池). A lake inside the crater of a dormant volcano, covered in vegetation which feeds on the rich volcanic soil.
- 7 Lion Couple Rock (雙獅岩). A popular fishing spot, despite the dangers posed by the sharp rocks. The unique rock formation lies on the northern part of the island and faces out into the Pacific Ocean.
Cultural
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- 8 Ye-Yin Old Tribe (野銀地下屋). A village consisting of a unique local architectural style, where the houses are built partially above and partially below ground.
- 9 Lanyu Flying Fish Cultural Museum (蘭嶼飛魚文化會館), ☏ +886 8 973 1573. Built in 2005 to showcase the local culture, particularly the Flying Fish Festival, the museum also has a number of workshops in local arts and crafts.
Do
[edit]- Tour the beautiful island on a scooter.
- Talk and dine with the local Yami people.
- Enjoy relaxing on this quiet island
Buy
[edit]- 1 7-Eleven (蘭嶼門市), ☏ +886 8 973 1061. 24hrs. One of the two 7-11 on the entire island.
Eat
[edit]Tribe Bar is probably the most popular place for western tourists and offers a mix of Asian and Western dishes.
- 1 Bayang Bar (巴漾複合酒吧), ☏ +886 8 973 2069. 07:00-23:30.
- 2 Rover (蘭嶼旅人), ☏ +886 933 089 849. 20:00-00:00. A seaside restaurant serving a variety of more international cuisine.
- 3 262 Bar (蘭嶼262). This outdoor restaurant serves a combination of local seafood specialities and local Taiwanese favourites.
Breakfast
[edit]- 4 A Li Gei Breakfast Restaurant (阿力給早餐店), ☏ +886 912 243 173. 06:30-23:00. A popular breakfast restaurant, just down the road from the airport.
Drink
[edit]- 1 11 Neighbours Bar (十一鄰), ☏ +886 927 000 893. 08:00-00:00.
Stay safe
[edit]When going to Lanyu remember that only at the airport and 7-eleven you can use card payments. All the other payments are made by cash.
On the island there are 2 ATMs (one at the post office and one at the 7-eleven in Iranmeylek. However, both are operated by Taiwan Post Office and doesn’t support abroad cards. Post office offers currency exchange from USD, EUR and JPY currencies (the rate is slightly worse than the actual rate for a specific date. Usually it’s lower by 1NTD). Because of that when going to Lanyu remember to take cash with you. Weather at island is often getting bad (especially from November to March) which may make you stay on island for a few more days. Take with you cash to pay for at least 4 days at hotel and eventually for airplane/ferry tickets (and eventually scooter rental and other activities). It’s a good practice while travelling to have some cash in world recognised currency and if you don’t want to carry around NTD then it’s a perfect solution to secure you from sleeping on a beach for a few nights.
Go next
[edit]Getting out is not always so easy. Winds can be very strong which makes flying and boat travel impossible at times. Leave yourself at least four extra days in case the flights are cancelled. Ask locals about weather conditions as they know best what’s the current situation.
To stay informed at all times monitor latest news about the weather. Don’t limit yourself to basic weather apps, but look also at weather apps that show wind and waves. At Lanyu airport and in Daily Air application the recommended app isWindy.
Flights are more dependant on weather conditions and often ferry is more likely to come than airplane.
Daily Air monitoring can be done from application (iOS, Android). Since the app is only in Chinese use translation from screenshot or refer to below features description.
Flights for a current day can be monitor with a feature under flying airplane icon with caption 即時航班. Afterwards there are statues for all the connections operated by Daily Air. For Taitung-Lanyu connection choose 台東←蘭嶼. There you can monitor current status of all the flights at the specific day. Possible statuses of flights:
Red - Flight is delayed (usually it means that the flight will be cancelled, but it seems that they keep it as delayed up to the last moment).
Blue - Flight has happened successfully.
Grey - Flight is cancelled.
Yellow - Flight is boarding.
Also while looking at the flights keep in mind that no flight can happened from Lanyu without the previous flight from Taitung being successful. It seems that not always the status for flight from Lanyu is updated as quickly as status of flights from Taitung.
While Daily Air allows to reserve online only 4 seats per flight there are still 15 seats that can be obtained within a queue registration at the airport.
Locals usually don’t buy tickets online. They just go to the airport and next to Daily Air counter register their ID number in a queue for a flight. You can do the same using passport ID and if it happens that your reserved flight is cancelled then it’s a way of getting a seat in one of the next flights (if you’ve paid online then this payment can be used for a flight gathered with a queue system).
After registration in a queue write down your number and check queue list in the Daily Air’s app. It’s under a list icon with 候補狀況 caption. Here’s the current queue status. However, especially after a few days without flights, queue may quickly clear out, because people that registered a few days ago could use ferry to get out of island or didn’t show up at the airport. So even if you are over 100 positions in queue you may as well get a seat in the nearest flight. And if you miss your turn you need to register once again.
Another way of getting out of Lanyu is ferry. Ferry schedule with latest information can be found in here.
Due to the description on website if next to a ferry there’s a black dot then it means that it’s fully booked. It may be true in high season, but usually it means that the ferry got a minimal amount of people to sail at that day (it’s true especially for ferries operated by 3rd party companies like Kai 1).
Tickets for a ferry can be bought directly at port 1 hour before the ferry departure (payment only with cash). One way tickets cannot be booked online. Some 3rd companies may reserve ferry by phone, but usually going to port 1 hour before departure should be enough. It’s worth also asking locals about ferries as sometimes there’s an extra ferry when one of the previous ferries couldn’t make it to the island due to bad weather conditions. Locals usually use dedicated channels on Line which contain more information (for example for Kai 1 ferries information is presented at channel @k281047).
Traveling with ferry may be hard experience, especially just after bad weather conditions. Ferry is relatively small and goes quickly through waves and on open sea it means jumping a few meters up and down every few seconds. There’s a lot of bags for sea sickness and most of the armchairs have visible signs of previous travellers getting sick. After arriving at the Taitung port there’s a shuttle bus to the train station that goes through the city. Departure is planed 30 minutes after ferry arrival.