Day 3 – Alishan (Cherry blossom festival):
Next day, at 3 a.m, three of us started to Alishan scenic area and fortunately, the weather was clear. After getting entry tickets (Adult: 300 ntd, Student: 150 ntd, Car park: 100 ntd), we parked our car and proceeded to alishan train station to board the mountain rail to Zhushan station. I was surprised to see a long queue on a cold morning at 4 a.m. Roughly, around 200 people were in the queue before us. We waited for about 40 min until we got seats in the third train. The gallery in front of the Zhushan train station is the place to watch sunrise. If you arrive early, then you can walk upto the sunrise observation tower about 500m from train station , which would be less crowded. There are also some breakfast shops in the train station; we grabbed something quick to satisfy our hunger. Sunrise time was at 6.08 a.m and we waited for about 20 min in the gallery. The view was not very clear because of cloudy weather but still we managed to witness an average sunrise view. Then we started to walk downhill to alishan station enjoying the mesmerizing beauty of alishan mountains. Our walking route was zhushan-zhaoping-sister pond-tall tree trail-temple-cherryblossomtrail-alishan station. I highly recommend this itinerary for travellers who have difficulty in climbing uphill. Get the train to zhushan and start walking down to alishan through different trails. End of March – beginning to April is the best cherry blossom viewing time of Alishan. We were lucky to travel at the end of March. Alishan, unlike other mountains of Taiwan, is characterized by excessive dampness which makes it to look lush green and imparts untouched serenity to the place, which never fails to refresh the visitors. My most favourite part of Taiwan till data is Alishan. Cherry blossoms, sakura, magnolia, Caya lily etc., added beauty to its serenity making Alishan very colourful.
If you really need a break to get refreshed, Alishan should be your destination. It took us 4 hours to walk down to alishan station as we stopped at many places. Finally, we reached our hotel in Fanlu at 1 p.m and started our journey to Kenting, the southern-most part of Taiwan, the coastal beauty. After exiting the freeway in Pingtung, the 70 km drive in the county road reminded me of coastal towns of India, with a lot of coconut trees, mango trees, cabbage, onion plantations lining both sides of the roads. We were enjoying the country side scenery of Kenting for the first 40 km of the drive after which the real beauty of kenting, the beaches came in to view. The vibrant blue colored, never-ending sea was on our right side whereas the left was the farms with diferent crops. It was such a beautiful sight to behold.
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| sail rock |
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| sunset at Kenting |
Finally, we reached our hotel (Summer Aura B&B, Hengchun) at Hengchun township. Our room was sea-facing with a beautiful balcony. This is one of the cheap & best hotels I have ever stayed (1000 NTD/night). This is highly recommended for travelers. It is situated in Chuanfanshi (sail rock beach), which is a tourist attraction of Kenting. Since Kenting is claimed to be one of the most beautiful places of Taiwan, we booked this hotel for 2 days and we spent the next 2 days roaming around exotic beaches and 2 nights in this beautiful room.
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