????{Trip} Northern ALISHAN with GREAT WATERFALLS! (阿里山北部)
Three days in the northern part of Alishan, including Ruili and Laiji. Great scenery!
01:30 36 Bends 36彎
02:00 Taiping Village 太平
02:50 Bihu Tea Plantation 碧湖茶園
07:10 Zhukeng River Trail 竹坑溪步道
07:50 Longgong Waterfall 龍宮瀑布
10:40 & 13:40 A-Han's Homestay 阿漢的家民宿
14:10 Green Tunnel 綠色隧道
17:10 Swallows Cliff 燕子崖 & Bat Cave 蝙蝠洞
20:10 Yuntan Waterfall 雲潭瀑布
21:10 Ruitai Visitor Center 瑞太遊客中心
22:50 Lanhou Homestay 蘭后民宿
30:20 Laiji Buluo Chufang 來吉部落廚房
Chiayi 嘉義
Alishan 阿里山
Ruili 瑞里
Laiji 來吉
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A-Han's Homestay (阿漢的家民宿)
Add: No. 79, Ruili Village, Meishan Township, Chiayi County (嘉義縣梅山鄉瑞里村79號)
Tel: 0911-037-729
Website: (Chinese)
Lanhou Homestay (蘭后民宿)
Add: No. 11, Neighborhood 1, Laiji Village, Alishan Township, Chiayi County (嘉義縣阿里山鄉來吉村一鄰11號)
Tel: (05) 266-1172, 0934-179-197
Website: (Chinese)
Bihu Tea Plantation (碧湖茶園)
Add: No. 38-9, Bihu Village, Meishan Township, Chiayi County (嘉義縣梅山鄉碧湖村38之9號)
Tel: (05) 257-1569
Website:
Laiji Buluo Chufang (來吉部落廚房)
Add: Sancha Rd., Laiji Village, Alishan Township, Chiayi County (嘉義縣阿里山鄉來吉村三叉路)
Tel: 0975-117-154, 0971-225-687
Website:
Travel in Taiwan (2016, 3-4)
Alishan is renowned for high-quality high-mountain tea, and Bihushan Tourist Tea Garden is a photophile’s dream come true. The entire rounded mountain-head on which it is planted is sculpted with tight rows of Camellia sinensis, as neat as topiary, cut through with boardwalk trails. The sweeping panorama taken in from the trails or viewing platform before the open-front visitor center/restaurant is powerful. The waters of the rough river far below churn this way and that, on their short, impatient journey to the sea. Renowned Mt. Jade and Mt. Hehuan make cameos on clear days far off in the distance, as can a high slope-hugging arcade section of the gravity-defying Alishan Forest Railway. This tea-plantation mountaintop, often shrouded in cloud and mist, is a popular platform for watching Alishan’s celebrated sunrises, sunsets, and “sea of clouds” phenomenon – dense clouds roll into the abyss-like valleys like ocean tides, savored by tourists from eagle-eye vantage points.
The 3.3km Zhukeng Stream Trail has a trailhead at each end on Highway 162A, west of Ruifeng village. Formerly called the “Old Charcoal Way” – early residents used it to take charcoal off the mountain to trade – it passes over 12 bridges, each of different design. There are a number of cataracts, hikers’ grand prize the 120m-high Longgong (“Dragon Palace”) Waterfall, reached via a dead-end side trail about mid-way along the main trail. This is a “hanging valley waterfall,” and as it shoots out into space the waters do indeed seem to hang momentarily in mid-air before making their way to the bottom of the deep gorge here. Behind the lofty natural artwork is Water Curtain Cave, through which the side trail runs.
Next morning, we hit the trails right after breakfast – and stayed on them most of the day. First on our to-do list was the charming, long Green Tunnel, accessed via a short side road that begins right at sleepy Ruili village. You’re immersed in a lush forest of tall bamboo, walking along what is in fact a narrow road, not a trail. Paved and gentle-graded, this spot is also popular with local folk, who come here for their daily constitutionals.
Then we launched ourselves on the challenging, visually thrilling 2km Youth Ridge Trail at the highway-side trailhead in Ruili village, across from Ruili Elementary School. The 1,000-meter-long Haohan (“Hero”) Slope has an average grade of 60 degrees – yes, 60.
The countless bat-roost holes in the Bat Cave were formed over millions of years by river erosion. The deep grooves in the mesmerizingly striated Swallow Cliff are also erosion-etched, the softer sandstone levels wearing away faster than the harder shale.
A few kilometers further west along highway 166 is the entrance to the steep 600-meter Yuntan Waterfall boardwalk path and, just before it, Yuantan Natural Eco Park. The two-tiered cascade is 26.3m high; the terrain features alternating thick sandstone strata sandwiching thin shale layers, twisted in a wild jumble of folds and faults.