Somewhere out there, on the Pacific-bound Orchid Island (蘭嶼) in Taiwan, there is a time-honoured, traditio obscura for fresh arrivals to circumvent the entirety of the island - within the first day. Being excitable and foolhardy backpackers, Alssa and I also wanted to carry this torch. When we disembarked from our ferry and immediately began asking around the locals for advice on this “tradition”, they looked at us like raving lunatics — that is, there ain’t nunnadat shit ‘round here. Traditio obscurum indeed. We weren’t discouraged, and persisted anyway. Unlocking this achievement was seductive. It probably made for a good IG post.
[Narrator: 4000+ words later, evidently not.]
The round island trip is a 34-km marathon on one of two official roads on the island, and under normal, conservative circumstances, would take about 9–10 hours to hike. Some of the Tao (達悟, pronounced Da-wu) aborigine we talked to suggested it should take max 7–8 hours. Unfortunately, we were not blessed with their signature islander enthusiasm, much less their native constitution. After all, we were running on a total of 6 hours of sleep — over 2 nights. We settled for a “leisurely” 12-hour stroll instead. It was a mark that would ensure we “enjoyed” the walk, but not put ourselves through hell just for the sake of achievement. Fuck IG.
During the days, Orchid Island becomes a sweltering oven. The Pacific sun, laser beaming down in gobs, radiates off the asphalt and blankets all those foolish enough to be exposed in an unnerving heat. So we opted for a 9 pm start, with a target finish time of 9 am — just before the cusp when hellfire begins raining down. I hesitate to tell you that we seriously contemplated giving up because we were just too exhausted. Alas, we thought better of it. “We had made our beds, and we were going to sleep in it” — but there were no beds involved, and sleep was still much further away — approximately 34 km’s away.
The best thing was, Alssa was the one pushing for it. When your S.O. is the one toughing it out, you have no choice but to man the fuck up. So I suppressed the urge for sleep, and reminded myself that this was going to be an experience, irrespective of the good or bad.
Orchid Island is relaxed, quaint, and beautifully local. But being a 2.5 hour ferry ride from the main island of Taiwan, normies would say it lacks the conventional “standards” of a big city. And like most other less developed places in Asia, it brims with stray dogs. Next to the humans and the goats (lots of goats), the dogs make up for the next most populous demographic.
Most of them suffer from some sort of skin disease, and can frequently be found frenziedly scratching and biting at themselves, until only a rough patch of exposed, infected skin was left on their legs and backs. It became tattoos marking their vagrant nature. If they were not roaming the streets during the day and night, then they were found hanging out in restaurants, idly staring by, drugged up on hopium that some compassionate humanoids would spare them some scraps. More often than not, they were disregarded.
When we began hiking at 9 pm, not far outside the boundaries of our jump-off, Ivalino village (野銀 — on the eastern seaboard), we were immediately swarmed by packs of roving dogs. They were fearless creatures. Some waddled over curiously to us, and others barked with a menace before sprinting at you in feigns. Alssa is particularly frightened of aggressive strays, so it was up to me to maintain a dominant physical presence.
My motto?
Occupy your space.
Never avert your eyes.
Stare them dead in the eye sockets, and if one is actually dumb enough to attack, you Mike Vanderjagt the fucker straight through the goal posts. Luckily, I didn’t have to put to test my skills as a failed American football kicker.
But by the time we were well and away outside the village limits and away from the packs of strays, the darkness had vacuumed everything up — there are few streetlights outside of the island’s six villages. Fortunately, we were graced with an all-time full moon, and it illuminated our walk in sheer poetry. Still, it was lonely out on the road, and what sounds you could hear from the ocean and the wind was drowned by the emptiness we stared into. Out here, we were the only big animals left on the road. Big, clumsy fucking humans.
All of a sudden, from our back-right, we heard a rustle in the brush.
In an instant, the pid-tat-pid-tat sound of synchronized hoofing amplified, and then a creature charged out of the woodwork straight at us. It was a flash of a moment, and before we even had time to react (i.e. lace a motherfucker in the head), what appeared to be a wheat-coloured dog was upon us.
We shone our headlamp down, and saw a pup with a shit-eating grin. It was wagging its tail jovially while it surveyed us. Tongues out, ears perked, it seemed to jump out of its own skin with curiosity. Judging by the lack of dick-and-balls, we opined that it was a female. Anatomically, she had a powerful chest that puffed out, and an aerodynamically cut hindquarters. She looked every part the athlete. From the way she behaved, she seemed to possess a very gentle disposition (discounting the blitzkrieg-assault we just endured). Of note, she had on a pink collar. It really wasn’t a common sight on this island. Why someone’s dog was out here all alone, we had no idea. We acknowledged the pup, gave it a soft little pet-pet, and kept walking.
Oddly, the dog kept yo-yo’ing us. It would spring forward maybe 10–20 yards, disappear into the bushes, and then inevitably come back out to meet us on the road. She would then hang back 10–20 yards, while we gained ground on her. Thinking she was gone for good, she would sprint back up in front of us. This pattern repeated for another 20 minutes, before it became clear she wasn’t going to go away. She quickly settled into her new role as our new advance-scout. And she was beginning to make an impression. It was going to be a lonely walk with 11 hours still ahead of us, and to have a cute, furry guest join along for the ride didn’t seem such a terrible proposition after all.
We had walked about an hour, maybe hour and a half, before we started feeding her what grub we had (a leftover box of deep fried finger foods). We immediately noted that she wasn’t like other dogs. She didn’t slather our hands with her tongue and saliva hastily when we held the pieces of chicken and squid out. Instead, she would sniff it, reservingly hold back, and only when we motioned the food directly underneath her nose would she gently nudge it out of our hands and into her mouth. I don’t think I have even seen well-trained Canadian doggos with manners like this. I was in love.
Over the next few hours of the journey, Alssa and I became enamoured with this dog. She became a loyal companion acting as our protector in the dark of the night. Orchid Island and its older generation of native aborigines believe fiercely in the presence of spirits, and this dog seemingly became a counter-charm to the voodoo.
If she had on a collar, she had to have a name, right? It became a competition between Alssa and I, as we yelled out random things hoping to see which utterance would catch the dog’s attention most. I yelled out, “Penelope!”, while Alssa yelled out, “Milly!”. If Alssa was telling the story, she would swear that the dog turned around more often to “Milly” than “Penelope” but… let’s be real — this dog ain’t give a fuck about neither. But just like so and bit by bit, we coined the dog’s adoptive name for the night:
Milly.
Endearingly, Milly became part of the legend of our first night on Orchid. She skipped into our little family, engendered countless conversations between Alssa and I (we endlessly spun out her origin story), and ultimately, brought the two of us closer together.
Good doggy.
By the time we had reached the nuclear waste facility at the southern end of the island (a controversial and worthy topic in itself), we were probably 2 hours into our journey. No matter the circumstances, we had decisively made up our minds that we were not going to hang around next to all the toxic sludge, so despite our legs crying for respite, we kept marching forward.
I was beginning to worry about Milly, because her yo-yo’ing was starting to slow down, and all that initial energy seemed to wane.
As someone who has never raised a dog, I have zero intuition when it comes to reading their needs. But when I figured that Milly probably needed water, I felt immense amounts of guilt for not having thought of giving her some sooner. The fact that we now had to keep hiking past the nuclear waste facility without stopping built the shame up even more. Milly had stuck with us loyally up to this point, and whatever happens hereafter, she was part of our family, which meant we were duty-bound to her wellbeing.
The walk around and past the facility was gruelling, and seemed to drag on forever. When we finally cleared the last stretch of the 10-feet high barriers that kept decaying buckets of nuclear sludge separated from the road and civilization, we stopped for a long-overdue break. Milly did so on a dime. I busted out a plastic water bottle, and not having any contraptions to quench her thirst with, Alssa suggested using the tiny water bottle cap to feed Milly. It was the best we got. Precariously, I held out the bottle cap, carefully balancing the water to make sure none spilled out. Water was a precious resource, and we were at least 2 hours away from the next village.
I am not sure if this next bit is just my inexperience with dogs, or if this is a common phenomenon. But when Milly first lapped up the water from the bottle cap longingly, her tongue clumsily slopping my fingers in the process, I felt the deepest bond with an animal I had ever felt. Here is this loyal, robust, mostly self-reliant creature that had voluntarily journeyed with us without a single complaint — now vulnerable, and obviously needing our assistance to stay hydrated. I felt an immense responsibility to her. I ruffled her fur, scratched her chin, and murmured, “Good girl”.
We began again with renewed energy.
It didn’t last long.
When we finally reached the first village in four hours of walking, Imowrod (紅頭 — on the western side of the island), sleep exhaustion, deadbeat legs, and boredom became very real points of contentions. We were happy to see signs of civilization after having walked through vast swaths of darkness-swallowed coastline for so long. And although the incandescent moon brought a poetic appreciation to the hike, that same reverence for moonlight romanticism soon gave way to a steel-like focus on each plodding step. You don’t trod Orchid for fun, and you can only repeat to yourself how much of a badass you are for so long before the thin veneer of “adventurism” melts into debaucherous pain.
Funny enough, our sweet, stalwart Milly, who exemplified endurance and discipline for 100% of the previous four hours, lost her identity the minute we stepped into the sleeping town.
Orchid is home to packs of territorial dogs, and villages at nighttime become their turf. Inevitably, a dog would catch sight (or scent) of Milly, and the entire fucking alarm system would go off, with one bark setting off a chain-link of others. No sooner Milly would freeze dead in her tracks, and look up at us. Anthropomorphically, her tilted head seemed to say, “You don’t really want us to go forward, do you?”. Some times, the more deviant strays would eject towards our group, barking, and Milly would instantly turn tail and scamper the other away as far as possible. We would always turn back for her. It was our turn to be the protectors.
We were tens of kilometres deep into the journey, on the other side of the island, far from where we had first encountered Milly. At this point, we couldn’t well abandon her in the middle of nowhere. We were determined to have her complete the journey with us, where we would eventually drop her back off in Ivalino.
The thing is, there were a lot of dogs in Imowrod. If Milly wasn’t frozen, she was full-tilt blasting off in the other direction. It took a lot of coddling to get her to inch forward. Even tiny stray puppies, eager for playtime and much smaller in stature, would shake Milly to her core. Alas, we had pretend-adopted a giant fucking pussy — but this was sweet, innocent Milly, and both Alssa and I loved her like no other.
The final boss came in the form of an imposing black Formosan.
Formosans (台灣土狗) are quite literally the “native dogs of Taiwan”, as they are named in Chinese. They are one badass breed of a dog, being ferociously loyal and intelligent. In fact, I plan to adopt a stray Formosan one day, because not only are they stunning beasts of athleticism, they are also incredibly affectionate and adorable if they are well-trained. Milly was probably a mixed Formosan. This final boss of a fucker was also probably a mixed Formosan… but unlike Milly, he was akin to a Death Star, and he fearlessly patrolled an intersection of Imowrod.
The hound stood with its entire body perked and on guard at the juncture. He watched our approaching group menacingly. From a distance, Milly was already beginning to slow down, clearly unnerved. She looked to the horizon with fear in her eyes and a shaking unease. We had to push forward, because we had already wasted too much time backtracking and convincing Milly to keep going. So we did the best we could, with myself physically dominating space between our group, while Alssa gently coaxed Milly forward and through the juncture.
But then the Death Star unleashed its superlaser.
[Narrator: he barked.]
Milly hopped out of her skin almost comically, and then she was gone. We found her probably 100 yards away from the predator, with her tail tucked tight between her legs, ears pressed deep into her skull. We tried to egg her on, but this time, she was not budging. Alssa and I were torn — we had to convince Milly to come forward with us, or abandon her lest we want to cut short our virtue signaling journey for Instagram here.
Out of options, I did something I never thought I’d do with a stranger (potentially stray) dog.
With one heave, I picked Milly up, cradled her like a baby in my arms, and parted the red sea. Mind you, I saw this same dog hunch over, take fat shits and jet-stream piss all over the road. But such was the bond I had grown and developed with this doggo.
I thought she would have weighed much heavier, because she was quite a big pup, but she was no heavier than the backpack we were carrying. And with a bit of elbow grease (and probably smeared dog shit on said elbows), I carried Milly away, past all the strays that were detracting us from our mission.
I repeat, I loved this dog. But realizing at this time that Milly was becoming more of a liability than we’d originally imagine, and as much as we would have loved to have kept her with us, I suggested the unthinkable. Dropping her off at the local Imowrod police station. Alssa agreed.
Yet lo and behold, the lone police station in this town was gated shut at this hour. What kind of a police station closes at night?! I am reminded that this was peaceful and quiet Orchid after all — sans the marauding packs of barking dogs. Milly’s destiny was bound to ours. We resigned to our fates. Probably somewhat happily.
Our legs weren’t happy though. And we were sleep-starved. Alssa’s eyes had become bloodshot from fatigue, and her typically infectious energy had turned mum. Milly was still waddling and keeping up with us, but always a few yards behind, as if to use us as meat-shields against other strays.
Around 1:45 am, finally at the edge of Imowrod, before we would be plunged into the darkness again until the next town, we took a second break. We found some picnic tables outside a beachfront hostel, and repurposed them for our rest station. 15 minutes of sleep. No more, no less. We were on a mission after all. Alssa instantly passed out. With the box of finger foods finished, I used the leftover box as a water tray for Milly, and set it down on the ground for her. Milly also planted down next to us, and sat guard dog. Our giant fucking pussy, being a guard dog — the thought made me laugh. I plopped myself down on the bench. And then I closed my eyes.
When I heard barking again, I jolted my eyes open. Milly was already sprinting away in the other direction, chased by another stray Formosan. She disappeared into a side street hundreds of yards away, a dog hot on her tail. I watched on in helpless exhaustion.
I decided to let Milly go.
I looked over at Alssa, who was still fast asleep. I let her rest a little while longer, before waking her up and breaking the news to her.
We continued the rest of the journey without Milly.
And just like that, Milly exited our lives.
Alssa and I pontificated deeply about how Milly would fare against the other big, scary strays. Our heads turned to nightmarish scenarios. We played one out in our heads where Milly would get lost, and being deathly afraid of the world and other canines, she would hermit away amongst the rubbish and decay, perhaps starving to death. Another scenario we played out in our heads, which was much worse, was her becoming pregnant. A lot of these other strays behaved as if they were trying to mount Milly. And then Milly’s owner, upon retrieving her a few days (or maybe weeks) later, would have a new litter on their hands. We reserved a glimmer of hope that instead, she would find her way home safe.
Milly left an unforgettable impression on Alssa and I. The way she loyally kicked it with us for 4 hours with not a single bark, whinny, or complaint. The way she literally ran away with her tail between her legs when she got scared. The way with just a bit of gentle coaxing, she would find her confidence again, and inch forward. The way when I — a stranger — picked her up like my own brood, she accepted my arms gracefully without resistance. And when I delivered her back to the ground, she left an unmistakably pleasant scent on my arms and clothes. She really didn’t smell like a stray at all. It was almost… floral. Or maybe it was dog shit? I was so tired.
We had come from a busy and chaotic world on the main island in Taiwan. When we arrived on carefree-Orchid, we were still tainted by the hallmarks of a busied life. Adhering to a schedule; making sure everything was on the straight and narrow; stresses we carried with us that surely manifested in our behaviour (at least in mine). Milly’s willingness to just jump into a whirlwind journey with two strangers, on a whim, was almost prophetic and unwittingly full of wisdom. You are on Orchid Island now, hoomans. Out here, anything goes. And that means I walk with you. Also, give me some food, bitches.
That first night with Milly kicked off a magical 10-days on Orchid Island where synchronicities and coincidences eerily befell us at every turn. Through chance encounters, we would meet and re-meet locally made friends. Often times, it would occur in places or at times that seemed out of the ordinary. Then friends of friends somehow became part of our group. We would serendipitously get invited by locals to have fruits, beers, and all else in between. Happenstances that would never happen in the matrix, happening. Milly really may have been the voodoo. There are perfect storms where shit just does not go your way, and then there are the perfect storms where everything does. We were recipient to that positive-leaning perfect storm, if you will — although I guess that’s just called a sunny day.
Over the next 9 days and nights, Alssa and I would drive around on our scooter through all 6 villages, literally screaming out “Milly” into every alleyway, every road, every bush. Every local who heard us screaming and searching would look at us like a bunch of touring idiots. We would crawl through tiny side streets, and then at a glimpse, catch Milly sitting next to a local, only to realize that that wheat-coloured dog had on a red collar instead of a pink one. Truthfully, by the 4th or 5th day, calling out “Milly!” was more or less in jest — a pastime and a way to add a bit of funny into what we were assuming was a hopeless situation. Orchid was a small place, but it was still full of unofficial village paths, and we had resigned to the fact that maybe, Milly was just gone. Lost to the ether.
Milly had become just legend now. We had thus far had an incredible time on Orchid, getting some rare opportunities to mix-in with and experience the local Tao hospitality (which I would imagine a lot of the commercially-focused tourists do not chance by). As mentioned earlier, we also found it eerie how we kept running into synchronistic encounters. Without getting into too much detail, essentially, by the end of our trip, a lot of loose ends from open story threads would end up getting neatly tied up, not unlike a well-written novel or script. Surely, it wouldn’t be fair to also get closure on this Milly thing, right? Be grateful for the good times had.
You know precisely what’s about to happen next.
On our very last evening on Orchid, we were riding around in Ivalino village, the same place where we had originally kicked off our tour-du-jour. We were being led by Ken, a friend we had randomly met in our hostel, and searching for a road up top to the island’s weather station. When Ken took a wrong turn, we also followed along into a steep, innocuous side street.
When he realized it was a dead-end, Ken turned around, shook his head, chuckled, and admitted he had gone the wrong way. Alssa, on some random fucking trip, decided to ask a localite busy chipping away at an in-progress gazebo outside his house, whether he had seen a wheat-coloured dog with a pink collar. Taken aback by the weird, off-the-cuff, and eerily home-hitting question, he replied, “Uh… there might be another dog like that further up the hill. But we also have a dog with a pink collar.” Alssa and I looked at each other in stunned disbelief. Had we really just randomly stumbled into Milly’s actual house?
The local barked into the house “欸 ~ 小囉米!”, presumably his dog’s name, which translates into Xiao (小) Luo (囉) Mi (米).
No response.
By now, the local was very curious why two tourists would be looking for someone else’s dog — and potentially his dog. We got off our scooter and explained our tale in deeper detail. We showed him the video of me carrying “Milly”, and he laughed to himself, almost in disbelief. “Yea, that’s 小囉米 (Xiao Luo Mi)”.
We were stunned at this point. The remaining open plot hole in our tiny little movie was about to get its rightful conclusion. The local barked into the house again for this mystery dog to come out, but again there was no response. He jokingly told us Xiao Luo Mi was probably inside enjoying the air conditioning.
Lo and behold, when a wheat-coloured dog with a pink collar waddled hazily out onto the street, we immediately recognized Milly and that unmistakable wheat-coloured fur coat, buff chest, big curious eyes, and that eversweet disposition. Through days of fruitless searching, and after giving up for good, we had finally located her down to her exact address. Joy and relief washed over us.
Despite our clear enthusiasm, Xiao Luo Mi, on the other hand, seemed much less interested. In fact, it felt like she didn’t really know us. In my own head, I had built up expectations of a monumental cataclysm of long-lost hugs and licks at the moment of second encounter. Alas, maybe she remembered us as her tormentors, forcing her to march 15 km’s away from home, and another 15 km’s back.
The owner went on to tell us a bit more about little Xiao Luo Mi, and explained that they had picked her up as a stray when she was a puppy (she is now 2 years old). Both the owner, and his elderly mother (whom by now had also been piqued by the commotion at her front door) told us that she is a very hearty and fit pup, with a penchant for athletic endeavours. No shit. This dog had walked 15-km’s with us, gotten lost on the other side of the island, and then somehow made her way back home through sheer grit and will. We all marvelled at that fact. How was that even possible, really? She was literally afraid of everything.
Ofcourse, pictures and many pat-pats later, we were saddened that we had to depart. We figured continuing to disrupt this family’s time was probably not very polite, and while they had given us locally grown pineapples to munch on during the whole interaction, we felt obligated to still be considerate of their time. After all, if you recall, we had literally just rode up a random side street and basically hustled our way into meeting a random family’s dog —on the pretence that we personally knew her —and whom, alas, had little to no interest in us. Milly, NO!
We went on our merry way up to the weather station, and treated ourselves to a spectacular Pacific sunset that stroked the spread of the sky a brilliant marigold. On a picture-perfect last day, we had finally gotten closure to one of the remaining open story threads from our trip to Orchid. I felt like we had squeezed every last ounce of opportunity and enjoyment out of a brief but wonderful sojourn.
I tell you — there is an eerie magic on that island, if you settle down and let it seep into ya. The spirit there is ancient, but it is alive and well. I mean… the fact that we had named this dog “Milly”, and that we had gotten to within nearly an inch of nailing her name… Xiao Luo Mi [lly]…
That’s pretty goddamn magical.
Hey! If you actually made it this far into my story, then thank you from the bottom of my heart for your consideration, patience, and love for reading so much of my work. Words cannot express how much I appreciate it.
They say ‘writing = clear thinking’, so I am on my own journey to crystallize my thinking (and thus my writing). If you enjoyed this story, you can find more of my work on Medium here. I also occasionally make long form blog-style posts on Instagram here. You can also find me blabbering on Twitter here. Finally, be sure to visit my website.
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