The last area we visited in Taiwan was the Alishan National Scenic Area which is probably next in popularity as a tourist destination after Sun Moon Lake and often paired with it. National Scenic Areas in Taiwan are the next tier of designated area below National Parks and focus on areas with outstanding natural or cultural beauty that are intentionally developed for sustainable tourism, green leisure, and regional economics. The Alishan area measures 30-35km east to west and 15-20km north to south, covering 415 sq km. It includes a core wilderness of ancient cypress forests and high alpine peaks; cultural communities, encapsulating 17 traditional Han Chinese settlements and 7 indigenous Tsou tribal villages; and agricultural landscapes such as the famous high-altitude tea plantations and wasabi farms built along the mountain slopes. It’s quite a collection!
The name ‘Alishan’ is not a single town but describes the mountain range, the administrative township and a tourist corridor. The main townships (where township means a district) in the area are Alishan Township (which contains the famous Alishan National Forest Recreation Area); Meishan Township; Zhuqi Township; and Fanlu Township. The name “Alishan" is a phonetic Han Chinese transliteration of the original indigenous Tsou word “Jarissang”. This illustrates the influence of more recent Chinese and Japanese settlers to the area originally inhabited by the Austronesian Tsou people from whom the Polynesians are descended. This cultural history and therefore importance of Taiwan is not so widely known, particularly in the west.
Over 3 days, our exploration of the Alishan area and surrounding neighbourhoods included the following (and reference to the map on the e-mail to this blog and the website may help):
Xinyi Township – manufacturing and agriculture
Gallery: Sun Moon Lake to Alishan
Xinyi township borders Alishan but is not part of it. The largest part of this population comprises the Bunan people who are one of the 17 indigenous tribes of Taiwan (up from 16 as of July 2026). We stopped briefly at the Mei Manufacturing factory along our route (Route 21) which is operated by the Xinyi Township Farmers' Association. This facility started as an agricultural processing plant but the cooperative transformed the entire manufacturing facility into an immersive cultural and creative park. The focus is on fermenting, brewing, and processing plums into specialty goods but they completely re-engineered their marketing to centre around Bunun storytelling, folklore, and indigenous art.
Along the same road (Route 21), Bunan communities grow many other products such as sweet apples, peaches, and high-mountain vegetables. However rather than aggressively mass-harvesting the apples to ship them to lowland supermarket auctions, the tribe utilizes the fruit as a draw for immersive, eco-friendly tourism, allowing travellers to experience fruit-picking first hand. In Kalibu’an village, we stopped to see some of the produce in roadside fields and watched a family preparing ‘wax apples' for sale. The point of note is that fruits here are wrapped in plastic bags whilst still on the trees, primarily for pest control, weather protection, and chemical reduction. This practice, known as fruit bagging, is a standard agricultural technique used extensively throughout Taiwan and Asia for high-value fruits like apples, wax apples, and guavas. Despite being called ‘apples’, wax apples are more like guavas: a lot more full of water and with no core, so all the fruit is edible.
You might think that with all this produce on show, agriculture is an important part of the Taiwanese economy. This is not in fact the case: agriculture accounts for only 1.7-2% of GDP. Semiconductors/electronics account for 20-25% and a surprising 60-70% comes from services, particularly finance and insurance. As Wikipedia puts it, at around 20th in global GDP rankings, Taiwan is an advanced high-income economy. This all took place over just 35 years: in the 1950s, agriculture dominated, then in the 60s and 70s, it was textiles and basic consumer electronics with full transition into a high income, high technology hub in the 80s and 90s. Perhaps I’ve not been keeping up, but this was not something I really knew!
Continuing along Route 21, the views looking down into the valley were spectacular. We eventually reached the Tataka Tourist Information Centre at the top as the weather closed in and everything was covered in cloud. Luckily we were shown a film describing the area in better visibility conditions with dramatic sunsets in which the photography was extremely good but at a height of 2635m the cooler conditions tend to result in regular afternoon cloud cover and clear mornings. Just past the visitor centre was a forest trail which provided some low contrast scenes amongst the trees.
The last destination that day was our hotel in the Alishan Forest Recreation Area, still enveloped in misty cloud. Inside the Recreation Area only approved vehicles are allowed so it was a short shuttle bus ride to the hotel. Sunset was 17:15 and about half an hour before this time, the cloud miraculously vanished to leave a dramatic sunset in an empty blue sky above a sea of cloud. The sea of cloud is what Alishan is famous for – only in the Recreation Area, there are so many trees that vantage points are extremely limited.
Alishan Forest Recreation Area
Gallery: Alishan Forest Recreation Area
One of the ‘must do’ activities whilst in the Alishan Forest Recreation Area is to get up early to see the sunrise. In the hope of capturing the sea of clouds, I set the alarm for 04:50 to get the Sunrise Forest Train and together with hundreds of others set off for the viewing platform about 4km away. As with many tourist activities, it was somewhat disappointing: the train was packed, the viewing platform was an absolute scrum (selfie world), the sea of cloud was visible but still limited by the tree line and a massive tree right in the centre of the view!! You’d think that if you had a massive revenue stream based on one view, you’d take the tree down? The sun rise itself was simply its appearance over a rocky ridge which lasted all of 20 seconds. Have a look at the gallery!
Later that morning, we took a trail through the forest to the Xianglin Village and the Alishan Shouzhen temple, noting the many felled trees from the stumps of which new tress had grown. The point here is that the Japanese occupied Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Wood was the traditional building material in Japan, and high quality wood for Shinto shrines, imperial palaces and castles was running out. When Japanese botanists explored Alishan, they discovered pristine forests of Taiwan Hinoki and Taiwan Red Cypress that had grown undisturbed for 1,000 to 3,000 years ands decided to have some. The railway was built in 1912 to move the felled timber for it to be shipped back to Japan.
Bamboo trail to Alishan town hall and the Alishan Tea area
The next morning we checked out and left the Alishan Forest Recreation Area for a short (2.3km) bamboo trail walk called the Mihu Trail which finishes at Alishan Township Hall and which is a beautiful, mossy bamboo and stone-paved path. It was then on to the Alishan tea area to view tea plantations, specifically the villages of Leye and Zhonge where (in Leye) we happened on a group of Vietnamese tea pickers who we engaged in (limited) conversation and took their pictures. Due to a severe local labour shortage caused by aging populations in Taiwan's mountain communities, high-mountain tea plantations rely heavily on migrant labour.
Fenqihu
Gallery: Fenqihu
Continuing west, and still following the Forest Railway line, our next stop was Fenqihu which is a historic mountain village at an elevation of 1,400 meters on the Forest Railway line and just 32km from the Alishan Forest Recreation Area. It is (roughly) the halfway point along the railway between Chiayi (Hinoki) and Alishan Forest and because it was needed to replenish the old steam trains with coal and water a secondary industry grew up supplying Japanese forestry workers with food. The Japanese ‘bento’ or lunchbox has remained a tourist staple.
The town today is quaint and touristy. Built on the hillside, streets are narrow and steep and the old main street features a collection of restaurants and shops selling local produce. It was here that we were treated to a traditional Taiwanese tea tasting: not a ceremony like the Japanese perform, as our tea master was keen to point out. Taiwanese tea drinking is far more practical than that! The primary tea offered in this area is Oolong and in Fenqihu, we were offered 3 variants: High-Mountain Oolong, High-Mountain Black tea and Roasted/Aged Oolong. All without milk of course. My favourite and the one we bought was the roasted version at around £18/$24 per 150g. Not cheap but a speciality product and apparently the leaves can be reused around 7 times!
Accommodation that evening was a traditional homestay on a tea plantation where they offered tea picking experiences for NTD600 (£14/$19). We didn’t have time to partake and the accommodation standard was, shall we say, rather rural with a dog which voiced its objections until gone 1am.
Hinoki Village
Gallery: Fenqihu to Taoyuan
On our last morning in the area, we spotted some tea pickers at work on the neighbouring farm. Too far away to engage, we spent some time photographing them from afar. It was then on to our last stop in the area, a small village in the much larger town of Chiayi, called Hinoki. Hinoki Village is a beautifully restored historical and cultural park which dates back to the early 20th century during the Japanese colonial rule. Chiayi was the primary gateway and processing centre for the massive logging operations in the Alishan mountains and Hinoki village, consisting of 28 to 29 official residences and dormitories, was built specifically for the Japanese forestry officials and workers. The structures were built almost entirely out of precious, highly aromatic Taiwan cypress (Hinoki wood) harvested directly from Alishan. As a bonus, we happened to arrive on a festival day in the village and got chatting to (and photographing) some ladies preparing sugar cane for the celebrations that evening.
After that, it was back up the Route 3 motorway to Taipei airport (Taoyuan).