Taiwan Trip 2015 (台灣30天環島記) - Day 19: Chiayi 嘉義 (Sunrise at Alishan 日出 @ 阿里山國家森林遊樂區, Fenqihu 奮起湖)
As I arrived back to my hostel I was greeted with a good news - the hostel aunty managed to get a group of other guests to share a cab with me! I am going to Alishan after all! Woots. The only crazy thing was that the taxi will leave Chiayi city at 3.30am! This meant that I will only have 3 hours to sleep before starting the journey. This was probably the second most hardcore itinerary of my entire trip. The first being the journey to Wuling farm to catch the plum blossoms.
So by 3.20am, I was already downstairs (my hostel was on the 9th floor) waiting for our tour guide cabby to arrive. Since most shops were closed I just grabbed some bread from 7-11 for my breakfast. Apart from me there were 3 more other guests who were from China, still students presumably based on their age. At 3.30am sharp the taxi driver had arrived in a pretty nice Toyata Wish and we then made our way to Alishan!
P.S: The fare for the taxi was NT$ 2200 (NT$ 550 per pax) for the whole day trip so it was pretty decent.
P.P.S: The weather on top of the mountain was really really cold so be sure to be thoroughly dressed (I learnt it the hard way)!
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| My itinerary for the day |
The whole journey took about two hours as the driver was speeding and overtaking rather crazily despite the roads being narrow and winding. Since I was relatively privileged back home in Malaysia to be able to drive regularly, I was not affected much by the reckless driving and winding roads but the Chinese tourists were already feeling sick and vomiting throughout the journey. Being privileged doesn't mean you have to be really rich to experience it, even small things like this would make you actually appreciate what you have right now.
At the Alishan station, where the driver dropped us off, it was freezing cold at that time with the temperature hovering around 8 degrees Celcius. I was pretty covered of my upper half of the body as I had wore a Uniqlo heat tech shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a down jacket but it was still not enough. I even wrapped my wool cardigan around my face to give me extra warmth but it still wasn't enough! This was probably attributed to my bottom part being totally unprotected as I had only wore a jeans. I should have bought a thermal underwear back in Malaysia if I knew it would be this cold. =/ I was shivering quite badly and had to constantly hop around to keep myself warm.
To see the sunrise at Alishan via the touristy way, you'd have to buy your train tickets at Alishan station to go up to Zhushan (祝山) where there is huge observatory platform to view the amazing landscape. However the train that is being used have very limited capacity so you must be prepared to endure long queue and being squeezed for the 20 minute journey up to the hill top. You can buy a to-and-fro ticket or a one way ticket. My plan was to walk back down after viewing the sunrise to catch the other sights that the mountain has to offer. Speaking of walking, if you want to avoid the crowd, you can always walk up towards Zhushan via the Zhushan Sunrise Viewing Trail. Not recommended unless you are really fit because the journey may take up to 1 hour and you may miss the sunrise if you do not time your walk properly.
After paying NTD 150 for the train ticket (and another NTD 100 for entrance tickets into Alishan), I then joined this crazy long queue out in the freezing cold weather. Mind you this was during the none peak season and on a weekday. The crowd will probably be double or triple of this during the cherry blossom season or the national holidays in China. Having said that Alishan is still one of Taiwan's wonders and a must visit place.
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| Super cramped train |
Generally there will be two trains: one at 6am and another at 6.30am, which is subjected to changes depending on the forecast timing of the sunrise. Today it was forecasted at 7am. However, looking up towards the sky, with such a huge blanket of thick clouds, the likelihood of seeing a beautiful sunrise is very unlikely.
Finally after 25 minutes which seemed like forever I finally alighted at Zhushan station. The entire area is just a huge observatory and tourists get to pick whichever spot that they like. I chose the spot right in front of the iconic Tree of Life (生命之樹). This tree was one of the remaining trees being left untouched after most of the cypress trees were cut down during the Japanese occupation.
Whilst waiting for the sun rise there was be this guy, which I assume who is an aborigine who acted as a guide shouted at the top of his lungs and did some story telling about Alishan which was quite interesting.
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| Alishan sunrise |
As the sun slowly rose, the thick sea of clouds did not dissipate. Ultimately there were no reddish orange skies. Only some sun rays squeezing through the cracks between the clouds. Oh well. Maybe better luck next time. Surprisingly the weather started to become much warmer as the sun rose higher despite the ground temperature being the same. Nevertheless I still went ahead to grab a boiling hot can of Ovaltine which was being sold at the stalls nearby to warm myself up.
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| Sunrise from another angle |
After enjoying the sunset view for about 10 minutes also, my group then started to head downwards back to the Alishan station via the Sunrise trail. The journey was quite pleasant as we passed by train tracks, cypress tree jungles, the Sister Lake (姐妹潭) and even saw some cherry blossom trees which already began to flower. I believe the whole scenery will be much more beautiful when all the trees are in full bloom.
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| Sister Lake |
Walking 40 minutes or so we then arrived at Shenmu station, we then boarded the train back towards Alishan station. Kinda tired to walk further at this juncture haha. Since I had bought a two way ticket earlier, it can be used at this station as well. Yay.
The train here also has limited capacity so it's good that if you could start queuing up early otherwise you won't be able to get on the train.
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| Signboard which shows the forecast time of the next day's sunrise |
As we exited the park to head towards Fenqifu (奮起湖), our next destination, we could see there was a really long queue of cars and tour buses trying to enter. Hence my suggestion would be, even if you don't plan to see the sunrise, just come early otherwise you'd be stuck in a pointless traffic jam.
Fengqihu (奮起湖) is another small town which links Alishan mountain back to Chiayi city and served as a link to transport cypress wood in the past. Now it's just a popular stopover for tourists heading back from Alishan. Over here you can find many stalls selling bentos (lunch boxes) as well as a row of shops to visit for shopping and other food. Or you could just visit the train station as tourists are allowed to freely roam around the tracks. A thing I noticed was all the stalls selling Ai Yu Jelly were at the same price. Haha. Talk about competing on the same playing field. Apart from the main area, you could also explore the streets around and you may spot some hidden gems along the way. Worth to spend about 1.5 hours here.
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| Bento |
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| Shops similar to the ones back in Jiufen |
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| Fenqihu train station |
Again I was lucky to spot some cherry blossoms which had begun to bloom. There is also another apricot/plum variant tree in full boom (李花) which was also very beautiful. By this time the sun was pretty high up in the sky and I didn't even need to wear a jacket anymore.
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| Apricot flowers..? (李花) |
My last visit here was at Tian Chang Di Jiu (天長地久) bridge. Nothing really much, just a casual stroll along a hanging bridge. Good exercise though. With that my visit to Alishan comes to an end and our driver then brought us back to our hostel at Chiayi city at 2pm.
- Day 19 end -
Next: Day 19 & 20:
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