Orchid Island (Lanyu)

After Taroko, I headed down the east coast by train to Taitung, a nice little city that serves as the access point to nearby Green and Orchid Islands.
I'd read that the ferry ride to Orchid Island was brutal, due to really rough water, so I bought a plane ticket for about $45. And the flight was only about 25 minutes, rather than 3 hours on a boat.
The island had a road around its perimeter that was about 37 km long. I considered renting a scooter, but as I didn't have my driver's license with me, nor did I have an international license, I decided not to risk it. There were several police stations on the island, and apparently they had just started cracking down on people not wearing helmets.
So I walked it. It took me about 10 or 11 hours including breaks. Being so far south, the sun was ridiculously intense, and I ended up with a really bad burn. I'm still peeling 2 weeks later.
Everywhere I went on the island I met many university-aged Taiwanese, most of whom were from up near Taipei and were enjoying the last few days of their summer break. They were all incredibly friendly, and many of them spoke very good English.
The island is famous throughout Taiwan for its native people, the Tao. The guidebooks will tell you that they still follow their traditional ways of life. That may be true to some degree for the older people, but like everywhere else in Asia, the younger people don't seem very interested in maintaining their past.
The Tao are known throughout the country for their canoes, which you can see in several of the villages around the island.
The canoe motif is also used a lot on several of their buildings, including this church.