My wife and I are currently teaching just outside Chaiyi and I want to surprise her with a small weekend trip up to Alishan to see the sunrise/sunset. It looks like we are pretty much forced to spend the night, as we only have about 20mins up here until the return train departs. I had a quick look at accommodation with my very limited Chinese and see that the average is about NT$2000/double room. Is that correct?
Which guesthouse/hotel would you recommend? We can’t afford anything higher then NT$2000 total for the night.
Take a look at the LP. The Catholic hostel is sparse but has everything you need and the caretaker, whose name suddenly escapes me, has to be one of the nicest people in the whole world. LP has prices, but if I remember its about NT$1200 for a double, really cheap for a dorm bed.
You will have no shortage of touts as you depart the station in Alishan…i was there 2 weekends ago and paid $1200 at a decent double room near town centre without reservation.
You will not believe the throngs of people that will be leaving with you for sunrise…
I also strongly recommend you check out Fencihu if u can stretch more time into your trip…more peaceful (except for sunday afternoon), great hiking trails and a charming small town. You can also easily rent scooters there to more easily explore tea plantations,waterfalls, and other natural attractions.
[quote=“bruin8”]You will have no shortage of touts as you depart the station in Alishan…I was there 2 weekends ago and paid $1200 at a decent double room near town centre without reservation.
You will not believe the throngs of people that will be leaving with you for sunrise…
I also strongly recommend you check out Fencihu if u can stretch more time into your trip…more peaceful (except for sunday afternoon), great hiking trails and a charming small town. You can also easily rent scooters there to more easily explore tea plantations,waterfalls, and other natural attractions.
Have fun!! Its a beautiful area.[/quote]
Yes, Fenqihu is lovely. And they have scooter rentals? Fantastic. What was the price and did you need a Taiwanese license?
How does the town look these days? They had a big fire last year.
Has the big boarded loop trail been completed yet? Are there signs for new trail system? They were in the process of changing everything when I was there last.
My taiwanese friend supplied her ID and we were off. No license required. The rental shop is located just outside the main area where all the buses embark/disembark. Rate was very reasonable ($250 for 3 hours…$50 each additional hour). Relatively new scooters …those cheap vino vespa-lookalikes.
I was not aware of any fire…all seemed right to me.
Hmmm…not sure what trail that would be. We checked out 2 sets of trails and spotted another big trail system leaving Fencihu on the scooter en route to Ruili (another great spot)…there was certainly significant signage on all trails. Highly recommended.
A quick question: could anyone point me to timetable information for the buses from Jiayi to Alishan and back?
Thinking of doing bus one way and train the other. I’m also looking for the train timetable – I imagine it’s available on the main railway websites but for some reason the timetable sections of the sites appear to be switched off out of office hours. I’ll try again tomorrow morning.
Thanks very much for any information.
(Feeling rather smug that I found this thread despite the search function being temporarily disabled!)
