Unlike many other major cities in Taiwan, Chiayi City hasn't exactly been a top tourist draw, but most of them don't know what they're missing.

Located in one of the remotest and most thinly-populated corners of Chiayi County (嘉義縣), Fengshan Ecology Garden (豐山生態園區) isn't a place you're likely to stumble across.

For some particular reason old trees always astonish me. Whether it is the sheer size of their trunks and branches, the feeling that with a bit of luck you could climb up all the way to the sky ...

I have heard there three things a proper Taiwanese of today should do -- cycle around Taiwan, swim across Sun Moon Lake, and climb Yushan.

Anyone who's driven along the main road between Tainan County (台南縣) and Chiayi City (嘉義市) will have seen it. If you've taken the train -- the slower conventional train that is, not the high-speed railway -- between Chiayi and points south, you'll likely have noticed it. It looks somewhat like a water tower, but with windows.

Just like that newer arrival on the scene in Taiwan, the High Speed Railway, Alishan（阿里山） Mountain Railway is as much a tourist attraction as a practical method of transport.

Bizitou Botanical Garden (埤仔頭植物園) isn't the only botanical garden in Chiayi City (嘉義市). There's another in the city's sprawling and eponymous park, some kilometers to the southeast.

The Jiayou Bicycle Trail (嘉油鐵馬道) is a worthy addition to Taiwan's fast-growing network of bike paths and tourist cycling routes.

Ever since seeing it marked one day on a local map, Meishan Da Xiagu (梅山大峽谷), nestling in a secluded corner in the far north of Chiayi (嘉義) County, has been high on my list of places to visit, for the simple reason that the Chinese name means 'grand canyon,' a name which conjures up images of awe inspiring cliffs and plunging precipices.

Emerging from the long tunnel through which the main road to the mountain resort of Caoling (草嶺) in Yunlin County (雲林縣) passes, we brake sharply.