The hotel gave us another 3:30am wake up call ... one had not been requested. The place was full of life for such an early hour.
Pete and I were packed and out of the room by 8am. The first thing we did was book a bus back to 嘉義. We hit the Starbucks for a muffin instead of the hotel breakfast.
The bus was scheduled to leave at 1:10pm. We headed out to find the 塔山 trail ... this was the hike we had missed the previous afternoon due to rain and beer.
About a half hour into the hike, we came across a sign. It clearly mapped out the trail, stating it was four hours round trip from that point. The time was 9:40am.
We followed the train tracks parallel to the forest path which saved a lot of time. After the tracks turned off, our only choice was to head up the mountain. And when I say up, I mean up. There were stairs after stairs after stairs after stairs.
The top offers one a panoramic view. There wasn't much else. There was no shelter from the hot sun and there were a ton of flying ants ... hate those things! Needless to say, we didn't stay too long. Nor did we have long to stay ... time was ticking.
Photo of 塔山 from the village - The platform sits on those rocks.
We trekked down the stairs and made it back to the village with almost one hour to spare. We grabbed a quick lunch and some beer.
The bus ride down was beautiful ... it took an hour and a half hour to get out of the mountain roads. It wasn't long before we arrived at the bus station. From there, we hopped a taxi back to the 高鐵. The next train to 台北 was less than a half hour wait. I was home by 6:30pm. Not bad considering where I was at 1:00pm. The 高鐵 makes traveling south so convenient.
I'm glad I made the trip. It was very touristy and commercialized, but I suppose that was to be expected. Rumor has it, it is Taiwan's number one tourist destination.
Yesterday, I dropped my mobile for the last time. I never really was happy with it ... perhaps that's why it kept landing on my tiled floor.
