(2017) 4 Days in Taiwan. Day 2 --- Alishan 阿里山

Day 2 was the start of the main focus of our 4-day trip to Taiwan --- Alishan. While we had hoped to take the famous Alishan Forest Railway from Chiayi 嘉義 up to Alishan 阿里山, in the end we failed to book the tickets, possibly due to the huge popularity of the railway and the fact that we were travelling on a Sunday busy with tourists. In any case, parts of the Railway were closed at the time because of the damages sustained in a recent earthquake, so that travelers could take the Forest Railway only up to Fenqihu 奮起湖 and needed to switch to a bus for the remaining climb up the mountain to Alishan.

Stops of the Alishan Forest Railway, from Chiayi Station  嘉義火車站 to Chu-Shan 祝山. The solid lines are the tracks in operation, while the dotted lines show the tracks that are closed (in December 2017).

(2017) 4 Days in Taiwan: Chiayi/Allishan/Taipei. Day 1 --- Chiayi 嘉義

Colourful Lantan Musical Fountain

Our 4-day trip to Taiwan was one of the most packed holidays that we have had, starting each day early and ending our activities late into the night. This included getting up around 4am one morning to see the sunrise on Alishan, and watching the stars till after 11pm on one night. Possibly because everyone was in holiday-mood, without the pressure of work, the long hours didn't seem too tiring.  However, if we had kept this pattern on for a longer period, we certainly would have needed another holiday to recover!

(2017) 4 Days in Taiwan: Chiayi/Allishan/Taipei 嘉義/阿里山/台北. Overview.

While not really a seasoned traveler, I have a fair amount of experience in planning our overseas holidays, some of which are described in this blog. More often than not, our holidays are decided rather last-minutely, with regard to both the destination and the duration of each trip. Such quick planning has been made possible by the helpful information provided by travel books and tips from numerous travel blogs on the web. So when we decided to pair up with another couple to go on a short four-day trip to Taiwan in December 2017, with Alishan (or Mount Ali) 阿里山 being the main focus, we did not suspect the planning would be difficult at all. It turned out that we spent a rather disproportionately large amount of time in working out the itinerary and trying to book the transportation during the four days.