Alishan Railway

After breakfast we got to the ticket office as it opened at bought 2 singles to a place called Fencihu on the 9am train. Apart from one other guy with his Chinese girlfriend, we were the only non-Asians on the train. A sweet little train it was too playing cheesy Chinese music interspersed with commentary as it was a sightseeing train.

At first we went through towns and then we climbed upwards into the lovely mountains. The trip started at an altitude of 30m and rapidly rose to over 1000m. It passed through small villages and went through impressive palm forests and other areas of lush vegetation. The rain didn’t really hold off, but the views were still good. People tucked into beef jerky, sour tea and other unusual snacks en route. From time to time the train would grind to an emergency stop and the guards would get off and pick things off the tracks. It stopped at a few town and usually no one got on, until one particular town where hundreds of people crowded on filling every available space. I had try and squash my packpack under me. The chatter was so loud it drowned out the music. Then suddenly, they all got off again about 10 minutes later. What was that about we wondered? Then we saw them walking over to the waiting tour buses: they just wanted a quick ride on the famous Alishan railway. As the now quiet train pulled off, again they all stood there waving at us.










We got off at the half-way point – Fencihu where we had read about some good hiking and interesting villages. The plan was to hike between villages and then join the train again in a few days to go on up to the highest point, Alishan.

Video clip taken on the train