Friendly dogs and sculpted frogs in the misty heart of Taiwan…
Sun Moon Lake Ropeway. Photo: Zhen-Kang.
Last month, I had the chance to go on a two-day trip to Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), in the geographic center of Taiwan.
Being 750m above sea level, daily temperatures felt around 5ºC cooler than in Kaohsiung. Despite frequent rain showers, the comfortable temperatures contributed to a sense that Sun Moon Lake is my new-favorite destination for a short break.
We stayed at Ita Thao (伊達邵), one of two villages on the lake. While both villages are tourist-focused, Ita Thao apparently has a more local, indigenous vibe.
It’s also the quieter of the two villages: more Wānaka than Queenstown.
The Thao people—an indigenous tribe of only 800, with a unique culture and language—actually live slightly uphill from the village. This explains why, walking through Ita Thao, I couldn’t spot any regular houses or apartments; the entire village consists of hotels, restaurants, and shops. And an excellent night market on the main street, where we enjoyed local food two days in a row.
Ita Thao Night Market, 7pm on a wet Thursday.These two indigenous dishes were incredible. The one in the front is bamboo rice. The rice is stuffed into bamboo and cooked……Before the customer snaps it open to eat the rice. This vegan option had a wholesome, nutty flavor.The other dish was this betel nut flower stir-fry. It was extremely flavorful. (Betel nuts are a carcinogenic narcotic stimulant, often chewed by truck drivers. Betel nut flowers are a healthy source of dietary fiber, often chewed by tourists.)These fried tofu snacks were also incredible. The seller told us to pull out the skewers and use them as chopsticks.Sun Moon Lake and the surrounding region is famous for its locally-grown teas. I tried a selection at this tea shop on the main street. One of the grandmas behind the counter asked if I had a wife, and what my salary was in New Zealand. I tried to deflect by saying I wasn’t sure how much my salary was in New Taiwan Dollars, so she insisted I calculate it. (Apparently, marital status and salary are Taiwanese grandmas’ two favorite questions.)Nearby, a couple of lizards were crawling across the 7-Eleven.The main street leads directly to the waterfront. Despite the SUPs, canoes, and pedal-boats, it’s actually illegal to swim in Sun Moon Lake—except during an annual 3km swimming race, which attracts over 10,000 people. The lights of the other main village—Shuishe (水社)—can be seen across the lake.
We traveled to Sun Moon Lake by rental car, which was great for many reasons, most of them being air conditioning. But the car was also ideal in the rainy weather, and was quicker than taking scooters, or trains and buses, to get there.
We drove two-thirds of the way on National Freeway 3—a high-speed road that’s off-limits to scooters:
National Freeway 3. The green sign indicates 301.7km to the end of the road in Keelung City, in the north-east. National Freeways 1 and 3 both run down the western side of the island, with 3 being the more inland, quicker option. Long stretches of the freeway are elevated on a seemingly-endless viaducts, with great views in all directions.This totally makes sense but wasn’t something I’d previously considered: roadside restaurants are denoted by a rice bowl, spoon, and chopsticks—not knives and forks.The freeway rest areas include malls with convenience stores, multiple food courts, restaurants, and localized gift shops……This pineapple-themed gift shop, for example, was in a pineapple-growing region. (I especially liked the wooden pineapple lightshades, which weren’t for sale.)Our rental car was this Nissan Livina X-Gear—a vehicle that was never sold in New Zealand or Japan.
We used the car to explore the wider region around the lake, including stops at some top-rated vegetarian restaurants.
At one of them, in Jiji Township (集集鎮), the owner’s elderly husband was rambling on about how much he loves the KMT, a political party that ran Taiwan as a military dictatorship until 1987.
At a happier restaurant, which featured a mosaic pizza oven and a purple owl-shaped outhouse, we met this apolitical dog:
In Taiwan, it’s not unusual for restaurants to have a friendly dog. And hand sanitizer.The mosaic pizza oven at White Deer Cafe & Pizzeria (白鹿窯 木燒手工麵包).The purple owl outhouse.We also visited Sun Moon Lake Wenwu Temple (日月潭文武廟), which features three great halls tiered across the hillside.You can reach the temple by car (as we, and other sensible people did), or by climbing the Year of Steps: 366 steps from 1.1 (January 1) to 12.31 (December 31).I lost track of how many steps we climbed within the temple complex. But we were rewarded with this view from the top.Back at lake level, we walked a wet 10 minutes through this forest, to……The Statue of the Nine Acrobatic Frogs (九蛙疊像).The nine frogs are stacked on top of each other; the number of visible frogs indicates the water level.
On the final morning, we took a ride on the Sun Moon Lake Ropeway (日月潭纜車). It’s a gondola lift that spans two mountains, with a total distance of just over 1km.
The ride took maybe 10 minutes each way, and cost NT$300 (NZ$15) return.
The top station is next to Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village (九族文化村), a combination cultural center and theme park. (I could be wrong, but it seems what New Zealanders might consider cultural appropriation, is welcomed as cultural celebration in Taiwan.)
If you show your gondola ticket, you get an equivalent discount on the Village entry fee—essentially making the gondola ride free.
But it was raining on-and-off, so we decided to forego the discount and cultural/theme park experience.
View from the Sun Moon Lake Ropeway.The entrance to Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village.A closer look at some of the indigenous art.
We stopped for a cold drink at a foodcourt at the bottom station. Through the window, on a hilltop above Ita Thao, we could see the Tzu-En Pagoda (慈恩塔).
It was commissioned in 1971 by KMT president (and dictator) Chiang Kai-shek, to remember his late mother.
