Little Liuqiu, Taiwan coral island teeming with turtles, temples and fantastical banyan trees
- The island’s green turtle population and coral reefs are recovering thanks to conservation legislation, and you can get up close with the big beasts on a dive
- It’s a place with a gory history – half its inhabitants were slaughtered and the rest enslaved by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century
It’s the fourth day of the fifth lunar month and dragon boats are being readied alongside the jade waters of Donggang River, in Pingtung County, southwest Taiwan. Tents have been erected to shade spectators from the sun while a fair in a nearby park is preparing for days of festivities.
“Want a balloon, foreign friend?” asks a sun-bronzed vendor. “Bendi xia hao chi,” suggests a smiling cook, waving barbecued shrimp in my direction.
Firecrackers explode outside the 300-year-old Dong Long Temple, a block away, dispersing bulbuls and quelling their morning song. The temple is dedicated to Wang Ye, a virtuous Tang dynasty intellectual turned Taoist saint from Shandong province. He owes his popularity to the southern Taiwanese, who consider him a divine emissary, the expeller of privation and disease.
There’s been a harbour in Donggang since at least the 17th century, its construction ordered by the Ming-loyalist Koxinga, who ousted the Dutch from Taiwan. But little of that history is evident in the modern ferry terminal I’m directed to, just beyond Huaqiao Fish Market, to catch a boat to Little Liuqiu Island, a 6.8 sq km coral atoll 30 minutes away.
A bright-eyed student sitting beside me on the ferry explains where “big Liuqiu” has got to. “That’s Taiwan island. Before it was known as Formosa, or anything else, it was called Liuqiu,” she says.