The unparalleled experience of my visit to Dongao in NE Taiwan

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/07/15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Last weekend I visited a couple of charming places in Nanao Township in Taiwan’s northeastern county of Yilan, but left out Dongao (東澳), which is a part of Nanao, because of time constraint. But I have been attracted to Dongao by something unexplainable since I made a short stopover there a couple of years ago. So I went there on Saturday (July 14) on a separate trip, and the visit convinced me that the half-day I spent there was way too short.

I started driving on the National Highway No. 5 from Taipei around noon. Normally it takes only about one and a half hours to get to Dongao from Taipei by taking the first completed section of the Suhua Highway Mountain Section Improvement Project at the end of the only national highway in eastern Taiwan. But because of traffic congestion before and inside the Hsuehshan Tunnel, it took me about two hours to get there.

I turned left at the end of the first completed section of the Suhua Highway Mountain Section Improvement Project and drove another 500 meters or so to get to Dongao, which is also accessible by train. Dongao is geologically similar to but smaller than downtown Nanao lying to its south, with mountains separating the two places. Like downtown Nanao, Dongao is surrounded by mountains on the east, west and south sides, with the east side bordering the Pacific Ocean with a long charming mixed sand-pebble beach (the Dongao Bay).    [FULL  STORY]