Taiwan travellogue, Day 6 Part 1 (Alishan)

My alarm rang at 4.30am and my daughter promptly reached out to silence it. "You'll wake everyone up, dii," she told me. But isn't that why we were all waking up at this unearthly hour? To prepare ourselves for the ritual of going to the Alishan rail station to catch the train to the viewing points of Alishan's sunrise. If there was anyone not wanting to see the sunrise, then he had no business to be in Alishan in the first place, I say! 😁

By five o'clock, we were out of the hotel. The whole park area was filled with people, all walking to the rail station. We queued in the long, snaky line to crowd one of the three trains to Duigaoyue (對高岳) station. There, some 25 minutes later, we decided on a vantage point closest to the station. Some of our fellow passengers chose to walk further away to watch the sunrise.

Gradually during a 35 to 40 minutes of waiting, the surroundings slowly grew brighter. Animals like monkeys, squirrels and birds emerged to give us curious stares. Over the mountaintops in the distance, we saw clouds in fiery hues of orange. But from where was the sun going to emerge? From which part of the mountain range would we see the first rays?

We found out at 6.24am. Alerted by some keener-eyed people, we shifted our sights slightly as a pinprick of light emerged from behind the mountain. Wow, was that it? We woke up at 4.20am just to see this fleeting moment? If not for the wonderful views and the animals we saw, this sunrise could be a bit of an understatement. We wandered around the station for a while before catching the train back to the main Alishan rail station. Breakfast over, we checked out and took the bus back to Chiayi.

One thing I must comment about the high-speed rail service in Taiwan. If possible, do try to buy reserve seats. No doubt they will be more expensive but it should be worth paying extra. When we arrived at the Chiayi HSR station, we could only purchase the non-reserve seats for our return to Taipei. Not that we purposely chose non-reserved seats over the reserve ones. The carriage was quite full when we boarded. My wife and I managed to find some unoccupied seats but my daughter and son had to stand for some time before some seats became available. And along the way, more and more people boarded the train and for the latter part of the ride, it was standing room only for these newcomers. Can also imagine that we had our luggage with us too.

Another thing I must comment on: the Taipei Main Station. It's so complicated with unhelpful directional signboards to find our way through the labyrinth of underground shops. It was quite a mess. We were unable to find the exit that we wanted and as a result, we wasted a lot of time. And finally, when we did find a near enough exit, we searched but couldn't find an escalator or lift to take us to the ground level. Although it was another long walk through the streets to locate our hotel, at least it was much easier to get our bearings right.