Me Loves Milk: TRAVEL TO A-Li-Shan TAIWAN

What does A-Li-Shan mean? “Shan” is the Chinese word for mountain, and “A-Li” is the name of the mountain. Alishan Forest Park covers 415km in area surrounded by mountains, villages, and waterfalls, and lies east of Chiayi, Taiwan.

It has become one of Taiwan’s major landmarks, and nearly everyone, be it the locals and the tourists alike will recommend visiting the place.

My parents are fluent Chinese speakers so we didn’t bother booking for a travel agency, we kind of did a backpacker-style of travel. Here’s how:

1. From Taipei, we rode a train going to Tounan, which took us about 3 ½ hours travel time.

Here we were at the train station.
Their terminal was so huge that there were actually group of students behind us practicing their dance performance, the use of space was free of charge.

I have mentioned that Alishan is located at Chiayi county, there are actually direct train trips to Chiayi however, there were no more seats left by the time we bought our tickets.

So, make sure you bought yours days before your scheduled tour as those tickets run out quickly especially on weekends and holidays.

2. From Tounan, we rode another train heading to Chiayi TRA (train railway) station, which then took us around 30 minutes.

Tounan station wasn't quite as big as Taipei's, but they do have this creepy-neat subway station.

If you have bought direct tickets to Chiayi, it can cut an hour off your travel time.

3. From Chiayi to Alishan, there are scheduled train trips we were not aware of, so my family and I took the bus instead. The bus station is just beside Chiayi TRA station.

This is the bus station to Alishan.

This is us taking a selfie at the bus station

This is the bus.

And last but not the least, this is what the internal organ of the bus looks like. Hahaha

The earliest bus trip was at 06:10am, and the latest at 02:10pm. Bus ticket price for adults was 230NT, and children 115NT.

We were able to catch the trip at 9:10am, and the travel time was around 2 ½ hours. I strongly suggest you take the morning hike because it gets too misty in the afternoon to a point where the views are barely visible.

From the left, you will find the bus trip schedules and fares. On the top right, is the super speed train schedule, and at its bottom is the local train schedule, which I can't interpret. Hahaha sorry about that.

This is the entrance to the forest park, and it has an entrance fee by the way.

After the tour and you’ll be heading back to Chiayi, return tickets are bought at 7 11 (you’ll see it when you get there). The return fare and schedule are the same as with that of the outbound trip from Chiayi.