⛴{Trip} Taiwan Travel -- Trip to MATSU, Day 1, DONGYIN (馬祖東引)
First day of our recent trip to the islands of Matsu near the mainland China coast. Dongyin and Xiyin are great islands!
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Music by Lee Rosevere (
Gear used for this video
Camera:
Panasonic Lumix GH4:
Lenses:
PANASONIC LUMIX G X Vario Lens, 12-35mm:
PANASONIC LUMIX G Vario Lens, 100-300mm:
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8:
Panasonic DMW-MS2:
Timeline (if you want to go directly to certain parts of the video)
00:20 Keelung Railway Station (基隆火車站)
00:40 West Passenger Terminal (西岸旅客碼頭)
01:30 Keelung Harbor/Tai Ma Ferry (台馬輪)
02:30 Zhongzhu Harbor (中柱港)
03:30 Haijiao Guesthouse on Xiyin Island (西引海角民宿)
04:30 Zhongyi Temple (忠義廟)
05:00 Inside Haijiao Guesthouse
05:50 Breakfast at guesthouse
06:30 Reclining Alligator or Crouching Crocodile Island (靜伏鱷魚)
06:50 Sanshan Stronghold or Stronghold No. 33 (三山據點)
08:20 Dongyin Visitor Center (東引遊客中心)
09:00 Dongyin Lighthouse (東引燈塔)
10:20 Taibai Echo Cliff (太白天聲)
13:50 Suicide Cliff or Lienuyikeng Cliff (烈女義坑)
14:20 Dongyin Distillery (東引酒廠)
15:20 A Thread of Sky or Yixiantian Cliff (一線天)
16:30 Lunch at Dongyin Visitor Center (東引遊客中心)
17:00 Northernmost Frontier (國之北疆)
19:00 Andong Tunnel (安東坑道)
20:10 Indian Head & Puppy Head (印地安人與小狗頭)
23:30 Main village of Dongyin
25:20 Tianhou Temple (天后宮)
25:30 Zhongzheng Gate (忠誠門)
25:50 Yanxiu Tidal Echo (燕秀潮音)
26:30 Rat Sands Stone Forest (老鼠沙石林)
27:10 Dinner at Zhen Shan Mei Restaurant (珍膳美餐廳)
28:10 Dongyin Visitor Center (東引遊客中心)
Info about Keelung-Matsu ferry
(Chinese)
Our guesthouse
Dongyin Haijiao (東引海角民宿)
Tel: 0928-267-242 / 0836-76-268
Add: 137, Zhongliao Village, Dongyin, Lianchiang County (連江縣東引中柳村137號)
(Chinese)
Restaurant where we had dinner
Zhen Shan Mei (珍膳美餐廳)
Tel: 0836-77-289
Add: 93 Lehua Village, Dongyin, Lianchiang County (連江縣東引樂華村93號)
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Also watch the latest video on this channel: {Trip} LALASHAN on the Northern Cross-Island Highway (北橫拉拉山)
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Dongyin
Dongyin is actually two islands, joined by a causeway. Two hours from Nangan by ferry, this is Taiwan’s northernmost point, a windswept outpost of tremendous natural beauty, with Matsu’s most thrilling scenery, a place of lofty granite cliffs and rocky spurs projecting out into the teal-green sea.
The cape-tip is at the northern end of a peninsula called the Reclining Alligator – the resemblance is indeed striking – and atop the alligator’s well-defined snout, at the peninsula’s southern tip, is Stronghold No. 33. The highlight of this abandoned facility is the decommissioned US-made twin-barrel M1 40mm anti-aircraft gun on display, which a signboard tells you “weighs 51,350 pounds, has a range of 11,000 meters, (and can fire) 160 rounds per minute.”
The Andong Tunnel, on the east side of Dongyin Island, is a superlative work of engineering, shooting right through a small mountain and exiting far down below at sea level. The area outside the entrance is protected habitat for the Black-tailed Gull and Black-naped Tern. Inside the tunnel are now-unused barracks, bathrooms, a kitchen, a meeting hall … even a pigsty.
Located at the easternmost tip of Dongyin Island, the brilliant-white Dongyong Lighthouse’s physical setting – stark, lonely beauty. The lighthouse is perched, at first glance seemingly quite precariously, on the precipitous-angle flank of a mountain, the great sea looming before, nothing in view. The mountain’s upper half looms behind and above, nothing of human creation in view. On the dizzyingly steep complex walkways, you look straight down into the sea at your feet. Completed in 1877, designed by an Englishman in 18th-century British style, this lighthouse is Taiwan’s northernmost national heritage site.
A stone-step trail behind the lighthouse leads to the Suicide Cliff, where ocean waves have cut deep into a mountainside, sculpting a vertical 100-meter-high wall on one side. The site is so-named because, according to island lore, pirates infested the local waters during much of the imperial Qing dynasty, and during one attack a Dongyin woman, her husband killed, chose to leap from the cliff rather than surrender her chastity.
A Thread of Sky, a deep and exceedingly narrow sea-erosion trench, splices two giant blocks of granite, towering rock walls facing each other just meters apart. The outer block is being cut from the mainland like a slice of birthday cake. Fallen slabs high up actually connect the cliffs in places. From the bottom only a thin, bright-blue ribbon of sky is seen.