Taiwan 2016: Alishan 阿里山

4th March - Singapore 新加坡 --> Taichung 台中 --> Sun Moon Lake 日月潭

5th March - Alishan 阿里山

6th March - Tainan 台南

7th March - Kaohsiung 高雄

8th March - Kaohsiung 高雄--> Singapore 新加坡

Please take a look at this link for my itinerary for Taiwan!

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Alishan 阿里山

How to get from Sun Moon Lake to Alishan

Outside the Visitor Center at Shueshi Village at Sun Moon Lake, there's a ticket booth that sells tickets straight to Alishan. One ticket will cost about NT300. The whole journey is about 3-3.5 hours long and stops at several attractions along the way.

One such stop is at the Sinyi Township Farmers' Association. It is a collection of small buildings which sell all sorts of things from local wine to cardboard products.

cardboard products

wine house

view is amazing

 About 3/4 up to Alishan, we stopped for a short toilet break. There was a visitor center and a short 5mins walking trail. The bus will terminate at the 7-11 opposite the Visitor Center. The cool thing about 7-11s in Taiwan is that they sell almost everything! From sim cards to stamps to even bus tickets down Alishan.

5 mins walking trail

What to do at Alishan

Alishan Scenic Trains

The obvious thing to do while in Alishan would be to take the trains around the Forest Recreation Area. If you're not into hiking, the trains will take you to major spots around Alishan to enjoy the attractions. In my hotel, there was a timetable board with the time of sunrise for the following day. This will give you a rough gauge on what time you want to leave and take the trains to catch the sunrise on the viewing platform. 

Alishan train timetable

map of alishan

Train station 

Alishan Train Station

Alishan Train

Hiking

Alishan is full of hiking trails for beginners (like myself) all the way to advance trekkers. We embarked on the trail suggested by the hotel receptionist and took the train from Alishan to Chaoping Station, hiked up to The Sisters Pond, Giant Tree and finally up to Alishan Sacred Tree where we will take the train back to Alishan Station. The whole hike is supposed to take around 2.5-3 hours if you walk non-stop.

at Chaoping Train Station

outside Chaoping Station

I would suggest you to take the same route and not the other way round. Every hiking trail has their up and down, climbing steps and slopes but the route that we took had more down slopes as compared to up slopes. Don't get me wrong, it may be easy to hike this trail, but it still got me panting like a dog!

Along the trail, you get to see beautiful cypruss trees!

We also walked past three trees growing on a dead stump! It's amazing how Mother Nature doesn't let anything goes to waste!

three brothers tree

We also found ourselves at the Shouzhen Temple where they were in the midst of a ritual/festival. We bought some Taiwan sausages (damn good), sprinkled some wasabi salt on it, sat down and watched the whole ritual. It was also the first time watching/experiencing fire crackers and they unloaded about 5 cartons of it!

fire crackers outside the temple

temple at Alishan

Catching the Sunrise

We woke up at about 3.30am just to pack and try to catching the train to watch the sunrise. As we visited over a long holiday, the station and trains were naturally packed!

in queue at 4.30am. 

Bought tickets to Zhushan Station (actually the only train operating at that timing is only going to Zhushan Station) to catch the sunrise.

buying tickets

There's a viewing platform just up the stairs from the train station. There'll be several stalls that sell Herbal Tea Egg and coffee that line the viewing platform.

a thousand people

so many people watching the sunrise!

Train Station

Alishan Town

There's plenty of souvenir shops and restaurants at the town center. Most hotels do not have a restaurant onsite, so breakfast is actually served in one of the restaurants there. You'll be given a coupon to redeem the buffet breakfast. Of course, the breakfast does not come with a lot of variety, but it's enough to fill your stomach!

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Sun Moon Lake

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Click here to find out about my stay at Dafong Hotel in Alishan!