Alishan

A 762-millimetre narrow gauge that leaves Chiayi and climbs. At Dulishan the track spirals the same hill three times to gain height, so the same view passes the window three times over. The full line, long severed by landslides, was joined up again in 2024.

Sunrise shifts through the year and the departure shifts with it. The next morning's time goes up on boards at the station and in the guesthouses the evening before, with seats limited enough that in season some people end up walking.

A boardwalk threads between dozens of huge red cypresses. The tree once called the sacred tree half-collapsed in 1997 and was laid down that June a year later, beside Shenmu station rather than on this boardwalk. The decking is level, an hour end to end.

Two ponds lie side by side, alike but for their size. Get there before the morning mist lifts and the trees stand blurred on the water; a bridge crosses to the pavilion in the larger pond.

Yoshino cherries flower between the end of March and the middle of April. In that season the mountain road jams and coming up from Chiayi by bus or train is quicker. The park is inside the forest recreation area, so there is a gate fee.

Twenty minutes along the ridge from Zhushan brings you to a wooden deck open on every side. Most people head straight down after the sunrise, leaving this one quiet enough to pick out the Yushan ridge east-southeast, where the sun came up.

The trailhead is not at Shizhuo but at Xiding below it, kilometre 52.8 of Provincial Highway 18. A short path through tea terraces ends at two platforms facing west, which is why late afternoon and the hour the cloud sea rolls up are what it exists for.

Six kilometres and a bit laid on an old logging trackbed, with sleepers still in place along stretches of it. The first half runs close to flat and then it drops. There and back is four hours, so many walkers turn round at the midpoint.

Dabang and Tefuye are Tsou villages. Each keeps a men's assembly house called a kuba. Women and outsiders may not go up into it, so it is looked at from the yard. In February the Mayasvi ceremony takes in the whole village.

A village around a station halfway up the forest railway, the lane starting where you step off the platform. Steam engines took on water while passengers ate, and lunchbox shops still hold half the street. Fog settles often enough that lamps burn by day.

Dozens of cypress staff houses in Chiayi where Japanese forestry workers for Alishan once lived, now shops and exhibition rooms. Beimen station, start of the forest railway, adjoins it, so people look round before boarding. The yards are wide and shady.

The trail to the 3,952m main peak of Jade Mountain, Taiwan's highest, begins at Tataka pass. The summit needs a permit won by lottery, drawn apart for day climbs and lodge stays. Without one you can still walk the paths round the pass with the peak in view.

A 281m suspension bridge slung across a Meishan ridge at 1,000m, opened in 2017. The Chiayi plain spreads below as you cross, and on misty days the bridge disappears into cloud. It is a stop partway up the road to Alishan.