Taiwan’s outlying islands are slowly emerging from their undeserved neglect. It’s true that the main islands of Penghu (澎湖) have been a popular destination for both Taiwanese and expats for a couple of decades, while tiny Siaoliouciou (小琉球) and the enchanting Green Island (綠島) have become summer favorites. But with about 100 outlying islands to chose from (of which around 30 are accessible by plane or public boat service), there are still plenty of little-known island backwaters for the curious traveler to discover.
Lying just off the Chinese coast, within clear views of Xiamen’s skyscrapers, the still heavily fortified Republic Of China-held island of Kinmen (金門) was forbidden to outsiders until it first opened to tourists in the mid 1990s. In the intervening two decades it’s become a hugely popular spot, as much for businessmen using it as a stepping stone on the “small three links” (小三通) between Taiwan and China as for tourists coming to admire its fantastic old villages and impressive military relics.
Since the opening of the small three links, Kinmen has developed at an alarming rate, and today a significant degree of the island’s old-world charm has disappeared. Some of its beautiful old Fujianese edifices have been restored to the extent that they no longer look old, while a number of the island’s unique Wind Lion God statues have also suffered the indignity of being repainted recently in gaudy colors.
Photo: Richard Saunders
Besides a rash of new residential development, at least one top-end department store on the island fully equals, in its capitalist opulence, Taipei 101’s exclusive shopping mall. Kinmen is still a great place to visit, but it’s liable to be a nasty shock to anyone that knew and loved the island in those decidedly rough-and-ready yet charming early days during the late 1990s.
The enchantment of Kinmen remains, however, in the small, protected pockets of the Kinmen National Park. By far the largest of these on the main island is its surprisingly rugged heart, the granite whale-back ridge of Taiwu Mountain (太武山; 262 meters). Although parts of the heavily militarized mountain have been open since the early days of tourism, it’s only recently that visitors have had freedom to enjoy Taiwu Mountain’s scenic splendor. This new accessibility has unexpectedly revealed it as perhaps the best place in any of Taiwan’s outlying islands for hiking.
Today visitors are allowed to climb the hill by at least four routes. The most popular by far is to follow the road starting at Kinmen Martyrs’ Shrine (金門忠烈祠) at the western end of the ridge. From here it’s 30 minutes or so up the road to Haiyin Temple (海印寺) near the summit, where most visitors turn back and return the way they came.
Photo: Richard Saunders
For a much more interesting climb, forego the road entirely and make a loop hike by following the lovely Baierjie (百二階古道), or Caicuo (蔡厝古道), old trail, then return by the shorter Doumen Old Trail (斗門古道). Both routes climb the steep, rocky northern face of the ridge.
You’ll probably need a map to find the trailheads. Baierjie Old Trail starts at the settlement of Caicuo (蔡厝). The first section, along a recently upgraded path of neat stone steps, isn’t very promising, but after passing an attractive tree-fringed pool, the trail reverts to a more natural dirt surface, and soon climbs up onto the impressive granite sheets of the hill’s northern face.
Follow the red, white or blue spots or arrows painted on rocks as the trail crosses the rock faces (admiring the panoramic views as you go), and after about 45 minutes, the trail passes the faint inscription of the ancient Yuan Dynasty Granite Stele (元碑; dating back to 1363), then plunges into a wooded glen and up the other side to join the tourist road, close to the island’s most famous piece of Chinese Nationalist Party propaganda: the Wu Wang Zai Jyu (毋忘在莒) inscription, carved into the rock on the command of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in 1952.
Photo: Richard Saunders
BUDDHIST TEMPLE
Walk back downhill along the road, and in a minute or two there’s the Buddhist Haiyin Temple (海印寺). It seems to have had a facelift recently, and is now a very handsome sight, surrounded by neatly manicured grounds and spiritual statues artfully dotted among the rock outcrops. There are toilets nearby, and a useful water fountain for topping up your water bottle.
Beside the temple the road descends eastwards towards Yangcai (陽翟). Although few people walk this half of the road, it’s far more scenic than the western section. The best bit is the first 20 minutes, first descending through a beautiful valley skirted with strange and beautiful rock formations, then lying high above a beautiful small lake nestling in the woods below.
After the lake one of several curious and rather impressive balancing boulders stands beside the road, at the brink of a rocky precipice. A couple of meters further, fork right onto the short but scenic Sunrise Viewing Trail (觀日步道), cut into the impressive, bare granite face of the hill. Near the end it passes beneath another huge boulder, which looks as though it might roll down the mountainside at any moment.
Retrace steps back up the road, past Haiyin Temple and the Wu Wang Zai Jyu inscription, then turn right up a short path to one of the finest viewpoints on Taiwu Mountain, the Reflection Tower (倒影塔). Beside it is the upper trailhead of the Doumen Old Trail, an attractive dirt path which makes for an easy but scenic descent. It emerges on a road about 1.5 kilometers west of Caicuo village, and an easy 20 minute walk back to your bike or car.
Richard Saunders is a classical pianist and writer who has lived in Taiwan since 1993. He’s the founder of a local hiking group, Taipei Hikers, and is the author of six books about Taiwan, including Taiwan 101 and Taipei Escapes. Visit his Web site at www.taiwanoffthebeatentrack.com
Under pressure, President William Lai (賴清德) has enacted his first cabinet reshuffle. Whether it will be enough to staunch the bleeding remains to be seen. Cabinet members in the Executive Yuan almost always end up as sacrificial lambs, especially those appointed early in a president’s term. When presidents are under pressure, the cabinet is reshuffled. This is not unique to any party or president; this is the custom. This is the case in many democracies, especially parliamentary ones. In Taiwan, constitutionally the president presides over the heads of the five branches of government, each of which is confusingly translated as “president”
Sept. 1 to Sept. 7 In 1899, Kozaburo Hirai became the first documented Japanese to wed a Taiwanese under colonial rule. The soldier was partly motivated by the government’s policy of assimilating the Taiwanese population through intermarriage. While his friends and family disapproved and even mocked him, the marriage endured. By 1930, when his story appeared in Tales of Virtuous Deeds in Taiwan, Hirai had settled in his wife’s rural Changhua hometown, farming the land and integrating into local society. Similarly, Aiko Fujii, who married into the prominent Wufeng Lin Family (霧峰林家) in 1927, quickly learned Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) and
The low voter turnout for the referendum on Aug. 23 shows that many Taiwanese are apathetic about nuclear energy, but there are long-term energy stakes involved that the public needs to grasp Taiwan faces an energy trilemma: soaring AI-driven demand, pressure to cut carbon and reliance on fragile fuel imports. But the nuclear referendum on Aug. 23 showed how little this registered with voters, many of whom neither see the long game nor grasp the stakes. Volunteer referendum worker Vivian Chen (陳薇安) put it bluntly: “I’ve seen many people asking what they’re voting for when they arrive to vote. They cast their vote without even doing any research.” Imagine Taiwanese voters invited to a poker table. The bet looked simple — yes or no — yet most never showed. More than two-thirds of those
In the run-up to the referendum on re-opening Pingtung County’s Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant last month, the media inundated us with explainers. A favorite factoid of the international media, endlessly recycled, was that Taiwan has no energy reserves for a blockade, thus necessitating re-opening the nuclear plants. As presented by the Chinese-language CommonWealth Magazine, it runs: “According to the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration, 97.73 percent of Taiwan’s energy is imported, and estimates are that Taiwan has only 11 days of reserves available in the event of a blockade.” This factoid is not an outright lie — that
RSS