Day #131: Alishan

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Alishan is a forested area of Taiwan (now a National Park) that was developed by the Japanese, who used it for timber exports. To facilitate this they built a railway from Chiayi through to Alishan, which had continued to exist primarily as a tourist attraction (though also as public transport between Chiayi and Alishan) up until a few years ago, when a typhoon sadly destroyed most of the railway. It is supposedly being rebuilt, but the Taiwanese I spoke to said they are not holding their breath. The only section currently in operation is just a couple of kilometres long, in Alishan National Park itself, so experiencing the railway requires a two-hour shuttle bus journey from Chiayi. You are advised to go as early as possible as it usually rains in the area after midday, so I caught the first bus at just after 6am.

It is a real shame the railway is not fully operational as it must have been a real old fashioned classic rail journey. Travelling the entire line now takes about 10 minutes, but around the area there are plenty of walks, including the trail I followed up to Tashen, which follows the railway line (currently disused) for a couple of kilometres before climbing up to a viewpoint. I started in sunshine but unfortunately it clouded over before I reached the top so there was no view, although the upside of this was that walking through the clouds made the forest gloomily atmospheric. By the time I got back down again the whole area was misty and looked like the setting of a Victorian ghost story

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