Last week, a few days before a forest fire temporarily closed part of Provincial Highway No. 18, I drove east along that road into Chiayi County’s Alishan Township (阿里山).
About 63 percent of Alishan’s approximately 5,500 residents are members of the Aboriginal Tsou (鄒) community. However, my hiking companion Richard Foster and I were heading for a tiny settlement where most of the people are of Hakka origin.
Dinghu (頂湖) is around 1,650m above sea level and just under 5km north of Highway No. 18 via a decent road with a few switchbacks. It sits in a little vale, surrounded by tea plantations and forest-covered hills.
Photo: Steven Crook
Long before my first visit to Dinghu, four or five years ago, a Taiwanese travel writer had told me it was his favorite place in the entire country. It is indeed a place of sublime beauty and tranquility.
The written form of its Chinese name notwithstanding, it seems there was never a lake at Dinghu, the second character instead deriving from a Hakka term for basin. This is also why nearby Fenchihu (奮起湖) is sometimes mistranslated as “Fenchi Lake.”
Alishan’s month-long official cherry-blossom season kicked off on March 10, and I feared Dinghu would be overrun with tourists, even on a weekday. It wasn’t, and we were able to park a stone’s throw from the path that rings the village.
Photo: Steven Crook
DINGHU TRAIL
What Web sites and blogs variously call Dinghu Circular Walking Trail (頂湖環形步道) or Dinghu Trail (頂湖步道) is marked on some maps as Dinghu Eco-Park (頂湖自然生態區).
Dinghu Trail is about 2km in length and, unless it’s an unusually hot day, you’ll barely break a sweat. Almost every part of the trail is shaded by trees or bamboo. There are quite a few steps, but never so many in one place that you’ll find yourself short of breath.
Photo: Steven Crook
Working our way clockwise, we followed the path downhill, and soon emerged onto the road that connects Dinghu with Highway No. 18.
The earth god shrine here is a useful landmark. Facing it, on the right you’ll see where Dinghu Trail reenters the forest. On the left, there’s a narrow but properly surfaced road, with a Chinese-only sign warning motorists that it’s off-limits to larger vehicles.
Soon we came to a vantage point from which it’s possible to see all of Dinghu (not that, in terms of buildings, it amounts to much at all) and an expanse of tea.
Photo: Steven Crook
If you look closely at the ground between the rows of tea, you may notice hundreds of peanut shells. My best guess is that farmers spread them in order to increase the levels of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil. They may also reduce the loss of moisture by hindering evaporation, a benefit not to be sneezed at during the current drought.
Pausing for a minute at the Giant Stout Camphor Tree (牛樟巨木) — big but not breathtaking — we soon reached the turnoff where some hikers veer off Dinghu Trail and head for the 1,976m-high summit of Mount Dadong (大凍山).
That mountain didn’t feature in our plans. I had my eyes on a few other trails in the area, while Richard, who’d stashed his bicycle in the back of my vehicle, wanted to conserve energy for the ride back to Tainan. We tramped on past Guanyin Rock (觀音石), a properly impressive outcropping, to the so-called Air-raid Shelter (防空洞).
Photo: Steven Crook
Dinghu was spared aerial bombing during World War II, and this cave-like feature gained its nickname much later. If you’re caught in a downpour, it would be an acceptable if cramped place to stay out of the rain.
MIST AND TEA TRAILS
Once we’d completed the hike, Richard assured me that Beizihtong Forestry Road (焙仔桶林道, the sideroad I’d noticed by the land god temple) wouldn’t present my car with any difficulties.
Photo: Steven Crook
Apart from having to reverse a short distance so uphill traffic could pass, the road was a delight. The views were enthralling, and 3.1km from Dinghu we were able to park where one end of the Tea Trail (茶之道步道) meets one end of the Mist Trail (霧之道步道).
For no particular reason, we tackled the latter before the former. It’s a mere 800m in length, so it didn’t take us long to reach the other end. There we turned right (southwest) on a road that soon brought us to Shihjhuo Wu Feng Temple (石棹吳鳳廟), just inside Jhuci Township (竹崎).
This hall of worship is named for and dedicated to Wu Feng (吳鳳), an 18th-century Han merchant who — if he existed, which some doubt — is said to have played a role in “civilizing” Aboriginal people in this part of Taiwan.
Photo: Steven Crook
About 200m past the temple, rather than take the very short Sakura Trail (櫻之道步道) down to an elementary school, we turned north on the Sunset Trail (霞之道步道). Like the area’s other walking routes, it’s a mix of concrete paths, wooden or concrete steps and wooden boardwalks.
Alishan National Scenic Area Administration has done a decent job placing bilingual maps and signs throughout the area. Using them, and applying common sense, we had no problems linking up with the Tea Trail, which lead us back to the car.
The Tea Trail lives up to its name, yet it was the stands of bamboo which the path cuts through that I found truly inspiring. Lots of people head to this part of Taiwan for its tea — to buy it, drink it, or photograph it as it grows. I’d come back for the bamboo alone.
Steven Crook has been writing about travel, culture and business in Taiwan since 1996. He is the author of Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide and co-author of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai.
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
A pig’s head sits atop a shelf, tufts of blonde hair sprouting from its taut scalp. Opposite, its chalky, wrinkled heart glows red in a bubbling vat of liquid, locks of thick dark hair and teeth scattered below. A giant screen shows the pig draped in a hospital gown. Is it dead? A surgeon inserts human teeth implants, then hair implants — beautifying the horrifyingly human-like animal. Chang Chen-shen (張辰申) calls Incarnation Project: Deviation Lovers “a satirical self-criticism, a critique on the fact that throughout our lives we’ve been instilled with ideas and things that don’t belong to us.” Chang
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but