After three days in the city of Tainan it was time to go to Alishan, one of Taiwan’s most beautiful National Parks. We had hoped to take the Forest Rail Train to access the park, but forgot the tickets needed to purchased in advance. By the time we arrived at the station, the seats were sold out so we purchased tickets for the bus instead.

The bus ended up being a beautiful ride and despite the warnings of  motion sickness on several blog posts, the ride was enjoyable and faster than the train. 

The bus arrived hours before check in so we dropped our bags at our hotel and set out to tackle the park’s biggest hike, the Tashan Trail.  Now that we were in the park accessing the forest rail to various spots was easier and did not require a reservation for most rides. The rail system was developed by the Japanese Colonial Government during the early 1900s to facilitate the logging industry. These days the train lines mostly facilitate the movement of tourists throughout the park with rides chugging along at a leisurely pace.

High Rollers On Tashan Trail

The Tashan trail started in a stunning forest area with the option of walking the nature trail which involved many steps up and down or walking the unused train tracks. Knowing we had a bigger climb ahead, we opted for the tracks. This also allowed us to walk a detour that took us to a tunnel built in the hillside. We finally understood why the train no longer ran along those particular tracks. A landslide had destroyed a section of the tunnel in the 1980s.

After enjoying lunch with a stunning view by the collapsed tunnel, we double back on the tracks until it was time to start the more challenging section of the trail. The easy track was no longer an option and the rest of the trail was nothing but steps. Cheryl, who was still recovering from being sick, opted to skip the climb and explore some of the surrounding forest trails. 

In general the walk up wasn’t too bad. The stunning forest served as a good distraction but we could sense the clouds closing in. The last stretch was nothing but concrete stairs, fooling us with every turn that we were about to reach the top. Finally the top was no longer an illusion. We arrive at a small platform overlooking the park, except all it was overlooking was clouds. We were hopeful that the clouds would blow away. With nothing to do but wait we pulled out our dice and played a couple games of Yahtzee. We decided it must be the highest game of Yahtzee ever played in Taiwan, because who else would think to play Yahtzee up there? 

The clouds did part for moments. Leaning over the edge as more clouds blew up the peak gave the illusion of flying. 

By the time we made it down and met up with Cheryl the trains were no long running so we walked back to our accommodation.

Our room in the park was the most expensive of the trip by far, costing us $200. Compared to other placed we stayed in Taiwan it would be considered a $40 room, but there aren’t many options in the park. The place had some brutally bad reviews and some rather comical, but the truth was it was still the cheapest option we could find. It did have comfy beds and down duvets so we slept well until our 4:50am wake up call rang through. 

Sunrise Above The Clouds

The most popular activity at the park is watching the sunrise over the peaks of Alishan. Fortunately, we had been able to buy the train tickets to the station for sunrise ahead of time. This allowed us to line up early and claim our spots on the train that left many unlucky people behind at the station. We are guessing those left behind were brought to the sunrise spot by the electric vans that ran in the park. 

We walked an extra 10 minutes uphill from the train station for a better, less crowded, view of the sunrise. The conditions were fairly clear. A few  peaks were wrapped in clouds while the majority of the valley remained exposed. Once the sun had crested over the peaks and the monkeys emerged to see what scraps of packed breakfast snacks tourists had discarded, we walked back to the hotel, picking up hot drinks from the food vendors by the station and stopping at restaurant our hotel had given us breakfast vouchers for.

With a few hours left before our 1pm bus we checked out of our room, leaving our bags at the front desk, and set out to explore the rest of the park.  Many people use the train system to explore the various highlights of the park, but we had become rather obsessed with our step count and decided to explore the rest of Alishan on foot.

This included walking the Sister’s Pond Trail, seeing the Sacred Tree (one of the oldest and most sacred cypress tree’s in the forest of thousand year old trees), we walked a suspension bridge, visited the Magnolia Garden and even saw some premature cherry blossoms in bloom.

Moving On To Sun Moon Lake

We picked up our bags and headed to the 7-Eleven at the park entrance to figure out how to get our bus to Sun Moon Lake. We were feeling a little uneasy about it since Jon had booked the tickets with a phone call. They confirmed the seats were reserved for us without any payment details or personal details besides for Jon’s name and then just hung up. With only one bus a day to Sun Moon Lake from the park, we weren’t sure what we would do if they weren’t really booked. Luckily the employee at 7-Eleven was a super star and assured us it was all fine, we just needed to load enough money on our Easy Cards, which they did for us while also making us Lattes and microwaving our lunch. They even caught us getting in the wrong line up and came over to put us in the right one. Obviously we were not the only ones who thought they were awesome as 7-Eleven had a cardboard cut out of them in the middle of the store. The other 7-Eleven we had visited in Alishan may have been the countries highest, but this one definitely won accolades for best service. 

The bus arrived and we boarded, paying with our Easy Cards (public transit tap cards) without anyone confirming our names or reservation but he was sure to count us all before we left so I guess there was a system. With 49,000 steps recorded since we had arrived at 1pm the day prior, we welcomed the chance to relax knowing the next day we had a big bike ride in store.