Taiwan...full circle Part Two. Sunrise in Alishan.
Hot summer Sunday in Athens, rest after a hectic week. Good time to continue Taiwan blog, for those who could be interested, and for myself, until it is not covered with the European summer holidays layers. My time starts to make a palimpsest, more than I would expect. I must confess to resort to Zen thinking more and more, when trying to encompass it.
Here I will describe part of the southern trip: Alishan and Kending. Alishan is the area EXACTLY in the Tropic of Cancer, so I was following one Western writer ;-), and Kending is the southmost of Taiwan. I know many will not have any ideas about this, so I attach here Lonely Planet map of Taiwan-OK, I add a small ad for LPlanet: it IS a good book, at least for taiwan and Greece, which I tried until now on my skin. Must have if you go there, even if you are native Taiwanese (or especially then!) :-D
Alishan is the place where you go to see the sunrise. Full stop. Translated Taiwanese way: we went so to come to Alishan in the evening-we were late for the last bus or train, so we took a taxi (lady found us and added us to 2 nice Hong Kong students who were on their holiday trip) and after a hour and some of quite curwy and high-going 80km drive (for only 400 NT$=10 eur per person!, bargained to 350NT$). After crossing the gate (and paying around 100 NT$ to enter) we were in Alishan village.
We took a room (quite cheap accomodation, considering how frequented is the place, it was around 30 eur for the double room, in the private accomodation of not the worst quality!). Task was to be awake EARLY in the morning (around 4AM), catch the small train to the summit of the hills around (about 2400m above the sea level), then walk to about 2500m height (some half hour walk on the paved road, with stairs etc., as usual in jungle mountains here). You are not going alone for such an event, as you could imagine, there is a crowd of people, in fact it was full small train, I had to stand half hour drive. When this crowd arrived to the top and walked a little to the summit of the mountain, a beautiful view opened in front of us: tops of the highest mountains from here to Tibet, 1500m higher than the place where we stand. YuShan or Jade mountain is 3952 is on the right here. Sun was just to come out, and the play of colors was delightful.
But, it obviously needed, in Taiwanese style, and advertisment. It is known that Taiwanese are all about business-leader of the Alishan village proved it: he announced the sunset to come, with MEGAPHONE, yes, but also was praising local food and other touristical points. It was a...say, unbeliveable thing to hear at 5AM in the tops of mountains, even in Taiwan. Unique experience, I tell you. I think after this I will go to Julian Alps in Slovenia with MUCH more respect for what I see and experience.
OK, so announced, here was the sunrise. We were lucky,as it was the 1st sunrise visible in last 5 days, because of the clouds.
As sun went higher, the previously hidden mountains uncovered their beauty. Not so stark one as in Alps, I must say, but still beauty and silence. It is completely different experience than in stone of Alps.
Towards the East, clouds above the plains towards the Taiwan Strait.
One for album (we're here at 5:30AM, after being awake at 3:30AM, this would leave mark even on Brangelina!):
Descent was some hour walk through the park-like area, one interesting comment under one Cedar tree, yes, someone felt obliged to specify what to do with such tree...
Afternoon, we went down to the Chiaji(Jiayi) by the best narrow-track train I experienced in my life-3:30 of beautiful ride, through 70some tunnels and descending from 2400m to some 100m. It costed also around 400NT$ and be certain to do it, it is really awesome experience. Especially if you have kids or locomotion illness, as descent from the mountain in the bus is shorter (takes about hour and some) but CURWY.
This is the picture of the old train, from the 1st half of XX ct. (it was machine transported from USA) for the transportation of timber
Today it is small, quite shaky train:
In the bus stop near the train station, we were reminded Taiwan has army, and mountain areas are exploited for the exercise. I would not like to go around at 30 celsius and 90% humidity in full army equipment! Poor guys!
Here I will describe part of the southern trip: Alishan and Kending. Alishan is the area EXACTLY in the Tropic of Cancer, so I was following one Western writer ;-), and Kending is the southmost of Taiwan. I know many will not have any ideas about this, so I attach here Lonely Planet map of Taiwan-OK, I add a small ad for LPlanet: it IS a good book, at least for taiwan and Greece, which I tried until now on my skin. Must have if you go there, even if you are native Taiwanese (or especially then!) :-D
Alishan is the place where you go to see the sunrise. Full stop. Translated Taiwanese way: we went so to come to Alishan in the evening-we were late for the last bus or train, so we took a taxi (lady found us and added us to 2 nice Hong Kong students who were on their holiday trip) and after a hour and some of quite curwy and high-going 80km drive (for only 400 NT$=10 eur per person!, bargained to 350NT$). After crossing the gate (and paying around 100 NT$ to enter) we were in Alishan village.
We took a room (quite cheap accomodation, considering how frequented is the place, it was around 30 eur for the double room, in the private accomodation of not the worst quality!). Task was to be awake EARLY in the morning (around 4AM), catch the small train to the summit of the hills around (about 2400m above the sea level), then walk to about 2500m height (some half hour walk on the paved road, with stairs etc., as usual in jungle mountains here). You are not going alone for such an event, as you could imagine, there is a crowd of people, in fact it was full small train, I had to stand half hour drive. When this crowd arrived to the top and walked a little to the summit of the mountain, a beautiful view opened in front of us: tops of the highest mountains from here to Tibet, 1500m higher than the place where we stand. YuShan or Jade mountain is 3952 is on the right here. Sun was just to come out, and the play of colors was delightful.
But, it obviously needed, in Taiwanese style, and advertisment. It is known that Taiwanese are all about business-leader of the Alishan village proved it: he announced the sunset to come, with MEGAPHONE, yes, but also was praising local food and other touristical points. It was a...say, unbeliveable thing to hear at 5AM in the tops of mountains, even in Taiwan. Unique experience, I tell you. I think after this I will go to Julian Alps in Slovenia with MUCH more respect for what I see and experience.
OK, so announced, here was the sunrise. We were lucky,as it was the 1st sunrise visible in last 5 days, because of the clouds.
As sun went higher, the previously hidden mountains uncovered their beauty. Not so stark one as in Alps, I must say, but still beauty and silence. It is completely different experience than in stone of Alps.
Towards the East, clouds above the plains towards the Taiwan Strait.
One for album (we're here at 5:30AM, after being awake at 3:30AM, this would leave mark even on Brangelina!):
Descent was some hour walk through the park-like area, one interesting comment under one Cedar tree, yes, someone felt obliged to specify what to do with such tree...
Afternoon, we went down to the Chiaji(Jiayi) by the best narrow-track train I experienced in my life-3:30 of beautiful ride, through 70some tunnels and descending from 2400m to some 100m. It costed also around 400NT$ and be certain to do it, it is really awesome experience. Especially if you have kids or locomotion illness, as descent from the mountain in the bus is shorter (takes about hour and some) but CURWY.
This is the picture of the old train, from the 1st half of XX ct. (it was machine transported from USA) for the transportation of timber
Today it is small, quite shaky train:
In the bus stop near the train station, we were reminded Taiwan has army, and mountain areas are exploited for the exercise. I would not like to go around at 30 celsius and 90% humidity in full army equipment! Poor guys!
posted by mikidkolan at 6:16 PM
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