***** THIS IS A HAVE-TO-VISIT MOUNTAIN IN TAIWAN!
Ali Mountain is probably the second most well known mountain of Taiwan, next to Yushan. However, despite its fame, you still see dozens of Taiwanese travelling to Ali Mountain, which is a rare thing if you look at the Sun Moon Lake because locals tend to avoid famous scenic sites. This is largely contributed by Ali Mountain's unique sceneries and the tendency that Chinese tourists don't stay over night.
I think Ali Mountain is actually one of the ideal places for tourists to travel by themselves in a small group because,
1. Public Transportation is really convenient, will elaborate.
2. Even though during the day the whole forest park might be over populated by Chinese tourists, however they generally DO NOT stay over night, so the trip will still be really pleasant~ Especially the SUN RISE, Morning walking tours, star gazing etc. Definitely something you will want to check out.
3. Easy to buy souvenirs, everything from postcards to dried vegetables.
4. Can take a little detour and visit 奮起湖 for their famous lunch box.
First of all, public transportation.
Generally, public transportation to Ali Mountain requires you to go to either the THSR Chiayi Station or the Chiayi Railway Station, both have shuttle bus to Ali Mountain.
This is the website for the buses, for Ali Mountain, click South: http://www.taiwantrip.com.tw/Main/Lang/?redirect=/About/&lang=en-us
For THSR Chiayi Station: Alishan Route A, Bus no. 7329
For Chiayi Railway Station: Alishan Route B, Bus no. 7322
Each of them priced about $NT 250.
You buy the bus tickets when you board the bus, remember there'll be no changes, so better prepare some coins with you. Once you get on the bus, you can immediately proceed to sleeping cause the journey takes about 2 hours from either train stations
Personally, sun rise is the time when i realise the surprisingly large amount of Taiwanese who visits Ali Mountain daily. It is honestly the only time that i saw so many people cluster in one location inside the Ali Mountain National Park. Usually, people scatter all around the trails and hotels.
To see the sun rise, you need to go to 祝山 station. The tickets are easily accessible.
1. You can buy it on the prior day to ensure your seats. This action helps the train station manage the amount of routes they need to go to shuttle all passengers and thus the earliest time for the train. If you are certain you want to see the sun rise, purchase the ticket at any train station within the Ali Mountain National Park no later than 16:00.
2. You can also buy it when you are at the station ready for the sun rise, which is about 4am. This is last minute ticket purchasing so make sure you remember if you didn't purchase it the previous day.
The price is about 150NTD.
p.s. if you forgot to bring your heavy coats for the trip, no worries, most of the hotels in Ali Mountain National Park offers rentable coats. I have heard they are free but i haven't tried so i'm not really sure.
Also, remember that Ali Mountain is a mountain, so it's ok if you see a bright sky when you are still on the train. The sun has long risen but it is the moment the sun burst out behind the other mountain that you want to see, not the moment when the sun came out behind the horizon. So don't panic like i did. (wink)
Ok, now is the moment when you step out of the station.
The moment you step out of the station, you will see a huge platform with dozens of people. The view should look like this:
On your right hand, you will see this:
Usually i wouldn't recommend shopping at these places (because they usually doesn't taste good and is expensive), but i have to admit this time it's acceptable. Taiwanese merchants are so smart that they sell hot soup or hot chocolate while you are waiting for the sun rise at an acceptable price. Regardless of the price, the pleasure that cup of soup brings you is more than 60 NTD, plus, it's refillable. So for a person like me, I drank in total 5 cups of soup for that whole morning. The satisfaction is indescribable. ***only the soups are refillable. It's not the best soup i've ever had but you will remember this one for sure.
You see my happy face having that soup?
When you are on your way to see the sun rise, remember to wear some heavy coats. The moment you step outside your hotel door, the chill air will most definitely escape into your clothes so you want to be as tightly covered as possible.
Train Tickets for sunrise
At any of the train stations in Ali Mountain, all of them sell tickets for the sunrise either on the day or the day before. It is recommended to buy the tickets on the previous day cause the last thing you want to worry about the next day morning is tickets. The train stations will collect the number of pre-sold tickets at around 4 so that they can decide exactly how many train do they need for the next morning and thus arrange the time for the earliest train at 4:30. So make sure you buy the tickets before the time announced at each train station. Even though they sure will preserve a few tickets for the next day morning, but there’s no guarantee and you definitely wouldn’t want to have that uncertainty when you wake up the next day morning.
Waiting for the sun rise, there will be a person standing in front promoting a product that he's selling while introducing the sun rise. Even though it is advertisement but because he has been here for so long and he actually does a good job at welcoming the tourists, he eventually became a local attraction. His speech is really fun to hear actually and the best part is PLEASE DON'T FEEL PRESSURED INTO BUYING HIS PRODUCTS. You can simply enjoy his entertainment and walk away with your wallet saved.
My schedule:
Day 1:
14:00 We arrived Ali Mountain National Park. Since the hotel check-in time for us is 15:00, we decided to hang around and just kill time.
15:00 Checked into the hotel and put down the luggages.
~15:10 Walked to Ali Mountain Train Station and buy the sunrise tickets (basically a ticket to 祝山 station) for the next day and another ticket for a ride to 沼平 station for the following day’s trip. We then walked around the national park from 沼平 station and eventually walked back to the Ali Mountain Station. The entire national park is fairly small and the main recreational area is near Ali Mountain Station, which is also where we ate most of our meals.
18:00 Walked back from the national park at Ali Mountain Station, ate at 久久久餐廳 because its menu fits our needs the most. There’re not many choices anyways, so basically just pick according to the content and price. We didn’t want any hotpots, and that alone eliminated many choices. Beware: food up on the mountain would not be as delicious and as inexpensive as the food in any of the town in Taiwan.
18:30 There is still about an hour time left till our fireflies watching mini tour, so we decided to go back to the hotel and freshen up a bit from the walking.
19:00 Walk to the designated area to meet up with others for the fireflies mini tour.
20:30 Finished with the fireflies mini tour and we were all exhausted with the day’s trip. And also, there’s not much to do at a national forest park, so. Taking midnight walks around the park maybe romantic but very dangerous and i’m not even sure whether it’s allowed or not. So if you really want to walk around at night, maybe consult your hotel or the people at the information centre.
Day 2:
3:00 Woke up early for the sun rise!!! SO COLD but SO WORTHWHILE~
5:30 Finally sees the sun~ GOOD MORNING~ after taking tonnes of photos we decided to walk back to our hotel since we are not rushed in time. The walk is really pleasant and you can basically just follow people since a lot of us walk back as well. The scenery along the way is also very pretty, and the crispy morning air feels very refreshing~ We walked VERY slow because of all the pictures again and we arrived about 7 am, so its definitely doable in terms of physical health.
7:00 After breakfast provided by the hotel~ just the traditional Taiwanese porridge for breakfast~ Decided to catch some more sleep because... we are tired xp
10:00 Tried to catch the $70 bus to Fenchihu, but failed because we went really late. Took a private shuttle car that costs around $200... TT but it's the quickest way and we didn't want to delay our schedule. So make sure you go early enough!!! make sure to double check the time!!!
11:30 Arrived at Fenchihu and we toured around the area~ There really isn't much (when we went) so it is usually a destination for merely lunch bento and photo taking. Hopefully they can increase our desire to stay in the future~
12:00 Were hungry so went to get lunch bento, it's really tasty and it feels like its home made. Not cheap since its a tourist attraction, so just enjoy it~ The whole decoration of the restaurant also contributes to the nostalgic atmosphere~ Very worthwhile i would say~ The schedule flows nicely.
1:00 Sadly after lunch it started to rain, so we didn't have much choice other than going down the mountain, where my dad will pick us up from the Changhua Train Station.
3:30 About that time, we arrived in Chiayi Train Station by the same bus we came up with, immediately we decides to go to Changhua since Chiayi is an un-researched and unfamiliar place for the three of us. Plus we had schedules planned for Changhua as well~ We had to wait for the train for awhile but generally speaking it comes pretty frequently since both Chiayi and Changhua are big stations.
5:00 We arrived in Changhua~ The rest of the schedule is not that doable by public transportation so i wouldn't write it here. However i do strongly recommend you guys to drop by Changhua on your way back if you came from the North of Taiwan. All the famous food of Changhua are pretty close to the train station and there is U-bike that you can borrow for a very low price which takes you to literally everywhere you would want to go. And since Changhua is the famous food destination for Taiwan, there is bound to be a lot of information on it~ It would also make a great end spot because of the abundance of souvenirs that you can get from here~ if not, please reply and i'll try to write an article about it~ ^^
Taiwan is very convenient and friendly in terms of travelling with public transportation, it's just it can be difficult if you don't read or speak mandarin. However, PLEASE don't be afraid to do so!!! TAIWANESE ARE ALL VERY FRIENDLY~
Thank you for reading~ Ariel's Conch~~