Sprawling rice paddies in Yilan County’s Dongshan Township (冬山) have been drawing crowds over the past few years, earning the township up to NT$15 million (US$476,145) per month in tourism revenue in May and June last year, the township office said on Saturday.
The township started witnessing an influx of visitors about five years ago after people compared its rice fields to those on Mr Brown Avenue in Taitung County’s Chishang Township (池上).
A record 150,000 visitors poured into Dongshan in May and June last year, the office said, adding that revenue from tourism was estimated on the conservative assumption that visitors spent NT$100 on average.
Photo: Chang Yi-chen, Taipei Times
Visitors flock to Sanfeng Road in Sanci Village (三奇), which is flanked by 16 hectares of rice paddies, the office said.
“I never imagined that a 1km-long farm road could have such a draw on people,” a township official said.
The road stretches from an intersection near the Fengzun Temple (奉尊宮) and makes a bend before another intersection at the other end, the office said.
The paddies turn a vibrant green in May and June, and the road cuts through them, creating a unique and beautiful scene, it said.
“Nobody knew about Sanfeng Road five years ago. After a photographer showed up and shared pictures of the paddies, it became popular overnight,” the official said.
The office in 2016 built a lookout platform at one end of the road to allow people to see the fields from a high vantage point.
Visitor numbers jumped to 50,000 in May and June that year, the office said.
The office last year launched hot-air balloon rides and subsequently saw monthly visitor numbers soar to 150,000 over the period, it said.
“The number of visitors has grown far beyond our expectations, especially in the summer months,” Dongshan Mayor Chiang Li-wei (江立偉) said.
In the past, there had only been a couple of food stands in the area, but now residents are taking advantage of the influx of visitors, selling sausages and other snacks from their backyards, Chiang said.
The village has begun collecting a clean-up fee of NT$100 per visitor, which goes toward repair work at the temple, where many visitors use the washrooms, he said.
While the fields are at their most vibrant in May and June, the township offers balloon rides until July, and after that offers workshops on pottery and scarecrow making, Chiang said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS