(阿里山, Mount Ali), and it is there that I ventured one weekend. Alishan is located in Chiayi County (嘉義), and is a sub range of Taiwan’s tallest mountain, Yushan (玉山, Mount Jade). At its highest point, it towers more than 2,600 meters above sea level, although the primary nesting area for modern-day vacation hunters is a little more than 2,000 meters high. Amongst the locals, Alishan is famous for five things: the sunrise, oceans of clouds, magnificent forests, sakura flowers and its lunch boxes.

We set out from Taipei one sunny morning and arrived at Chiayi Train Station, where we boarded the Alishan Forestry Railway train, whose tracks are no wider than Dr. Evil’s “Mini-Me” is tall. The locomotive was old and had character, and spewed black smoke into the nearby passenger compartments every so often.

It took over three hours for the Alishan train to push its five carriages up the mountain, but the journey itself was part of the fun. As the train ascended its winding path that hugged the mountainside, the typical broadleaf trees gave way to conifers. What was even more interesting were the so-called “thousand-year-old trees” that appeared every so often on the train ride up.

These trees were exceptionally wide and tall, and are magnificent sights to behold. The only thing disconcerting about the whole train-ride up were the signs of frequent and recent landslides near the tracks. In fact, I would find out later that a landslide had blocked the tracks only the day before we took our trip.

Nearing our destination, above 1,800 meters, we started seeing the wonderful oceans of cloud frequently mentioned in tourist brochures. The cottony puffs gathered in the valleys below us really made me feel that I was flying. Sheer cliffs of stone, where no plant could lay roots, could be seen jutting out of the depths of the clouds. The train chugged on, just like an airship.

When we finally got to our destination, the Alishan Train Station, and stepped out, the crisp mountain air immediately enveloped us. The freshness and coolness of the air was exceptional, and I enjoyed breathing every square inch of it! Soon after, we were sampling the fare on offer in town. What I soon realized was that, aside from Wasabi root and Sakura fruit, everything else edible must have been lugged up the mountain from the cities below.

On the train again early the next morning, with practically every other tourist on Alishan there too, we took a slow 20-minute ride to the spot where we were to watch the sunrise. After getting off the train, we found the perfect spot (you’ll know it when you spot the helicopter landing pad). And fortunately for us, the weather that day was completely clear. We stood there for quite some time before the first rays of the sun peeked over the mountains and proceeded to try to blind us.

Yes, I did buy a pair of paper sunglasses for NT$10, but I decided that they would not actually protect my eyes. An old lady beside us said that at this point, the landscape would turn gold with the sun’s rays bathing them – but it didn’t happen.

After getting back to our hotel at around 7:30 a.m., I was exhausted and immediately drifted off to sleep. At about 9:00 a.m., two of my friends were getting ready to go hiking, and I didn’t go because not only was I dead tired, but also because I erroneously thought there would be time later to go hiking. At nearly noon, my wife woke me up to say that we must get out of the hotel room and get ready to go by minivan to Fenci Hu (奮起湖), where we would sample the so-called famous lunch boxes and walk through Alishan’s tourist street. I had missed my chance to go hiking in the ancient woods.

When we got to Fenci Hu, we were immediately led to the lunch box establishment. As it happened, our lunch boxes tasted exactly the same as any other random lunch box and the atmosphere of the “restaurant” was “horse-horse, tiger-tiger.” The only thing left to do now was to walk up and down the tourist street. I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between Fenci Hu’s streets and the streets of Jioufen (九份). The only really interesting things in that village were two steam locomotives built around 1915 by the Japanese, being displayed at the train station.

Our last stop as we headed down the mountain, back to Chiayi in the minivan, was a pair of suspension footbridges by the name of Tianchang (天長) and Dijiou (地久). Tianchang was quite nice as it was really high up and the view of the gorge beneath it was exciting, but Dijiou was merely a low bridge over a small river. After a relatively short ride in the minivan, we were back in Chiayi in time for dinner.