The Dulan Vortex

Dulan turned out to be one of those towns that anyone that has traveled has been to and maybe even found themselves "stuck".  Not that stuck is the necesarily a bad thing in many of these cases.  Certainly not for Dulan, a small, artsy, surfing village tucked neatly in a cove just north of the city of Taitung.  As for us, unable to delay our riding any longer we rolled in an evening ahead of our friend and decided to wait him out figuring that some time to blog or clean clothes would not be the worst option.  After stopping at a brick-oven pizza joint on the side of the road- an obvious sign that this place would be slightly unique- we went to the usual location, the local police station, to ask about camping foor the night.  As it turned out they had built a few small covered sleeping platforms for cyclists right on their grounds for free.  

Um, hell yeah I am ready for some pizza.  3 months+no cheese = cranky Chiara

Aparently I was looking at something super interesting on my phone in the free campground at the Dulan police station.  WHERE in the WORLD do the police have free places for you to camp?!?! Oh, yeah, awesome Taiwan, that's where.

Delighted by this we claimed a spot, showered, and made ourselves comfortable.   That evening we went for a stroll down the single drag that made up the bulk of the town and discovered this little spot housed multiple backpacker style hostels filled with westerners and locals intermingling, drinking, eating, and listening to loud music.  We even came across a couple from Denmark that we had met previously in Haulien and we spent the evening chatting, drinking,and enjoying a more traditional 'backpacker' type experience.  Awakening the next morning, feeling a bit rough from the nights libations (i.e. Chiara was pretty hungover) we made slow progress packing our gear and moving from 'camp', but we eventually climbed the hills outside town to meet our friends.  That evening we were reunited with

Aaron or A-A-ron (a Warmshowers host from Japan) 

and we were introduced to his friend, an artist also from Spain, Alvaro aka 'Boubba', who lived austerely in this little artist, surf onclave while he worked on an art installation for which he had been commissioned.  To round-off our small mismatched crew was a Chinese woman, Vivi, who was also staying at the small home through a Couchsurfing vacation.  

We were quite the internation hodgepodge- eating, drinking, swimming, debating, and sharing stories.  Quickly 4 days elapsed and it became apparent why so many of the westerners didn't appear to have any plans on leaving any time soon.  We even started becoming more acquainted with local, um, friendly insects, that used the house as at least aspart time  residents, such as Priscilla, the bathroom spider that was almost the size of my hand, and this crazy praying mantis that was not the size of my hand.  Also viewed were groups of monkeys, hawks, hawks biting the heads of snakes, headless snakes, possibly every genus and species of moth ever recorded, dark brown wasps well over and inch and 1/2 long, and tons of others crazy creatures.

    

The laid back lifestyle, the access to beautiful uncrowded beach and surf breaks, and the congenial vibe slowed us down too, but eventually we packed up and continued further south.