Taiwan trip Part I

I was there for 12 days, from April 4th till April 15th.
Despite the amount of time I spent surfing the net for information, the places that I visited were beyond my imagination. I was blown away again and again. Just when I thought the views couldn't get any better, I was pleasantly surprised by just how beautiful Taiwan is.

My last trip to Taiwan was 4 years ago, for my first ever medical students' conference.
I didn't have much time to explore even Taipei itself and I never thought I would go to Taiwan again.

We arrived at Sun Moon Lake on the first night. It was an exhausting day since we traveled for most of the time. We rushed to KL central, barely on time for the bus and took a 4+ hour flight to Taoyuan. Upon reaching Taoyuan, it was another 2.5 hours of bus ride to Taichung and at Taichung, again we boarded a bus to SML. We reached Taichung 5 minutes before the bus left...

SML was in a state of darkness and I thought perhaps I made the wrong decision by insisting on visiting it. Afterall, it was a long journey and my brother was not really enthusiastic about the place. We had to cut Alishan out of the picture because of SML.

We went to the nearest 7 eleven for supper (we made this a habit of ours during our 12 day visit). I wish Malaysia's 7-11 is as well-stocked and cheap as those in Taiwan.

We stayed in a homestay at the Moon Lake (Sun Moon Lake had two more well known parts, one shaped like the crescent moon and the other like the sun). It was far from the tourist centre where we arrived at.

The homestay where we stayed at.

We had to take a boat to Xuan Guang Temple.

Xin Guang Temple. 

On the way up the temple

The water was crystal clear!!

The temple was in the centre of the lake.

We were too tired to wake up early the next day for sunrise. Anyway, it was very hazy and we were told that we had to climb this trail to get the best sunrise view from the hill/mountain. (Maolan trail) Instead, we took a boat to Xuan Guang Temple for an hour. We rented the bicycle with batteries so we don't have to use our ATPs.
  

Wildflowers along the trail.

After that, we went around the lake to the frog trail and wen wu temple..

The fog trail.

Our last stop for the day was at Shuishe lakeside.
The view was breathtaking..If we were to stare at the lake and forget to turn BEHIND to stare at the skyline, we would've missed this..

Flowers blooming under the blue blue sky (Too bad The camera failed to capture the real colour of the sky.)

I'm not sure if it's because I haven't been in touch with nature for a long time or the fact that everything in SML is so picturesque.. I wish I have the talent to paint what was in front of my eyes so that I can share it with others. Since I don't, I guess photo is the next best option:)

There were quite a number of people sitting at the banks watching the haze. We wanted to watch the sunset but it was too hazy and I had a feeling it was going to rain... and it DID!

My initially impression of SML being a placed where I can explore on bicycle was totally wrong! I don't think I have the stamina to cycle even a quarter of SML.

We should have just rented a scooter (Scooter is the most popular choice of transportation in Taiwan. We never saw anyone riding a REAL motorcycle). We went to a few trails and temples and at about 3pm, we decided we had done enough for the day and we were going to wait for the sunset. The sun sets earlier in Taiwan. Unfortunately, it was too hazy and it started to drizzle after a while. We were 30 minutes away from Homestay and we thought we could make it before it rained like cats and dogs. We were wrong again. We had to return to the Visitor centre for shelter and to return the bicycle. We managed to catch the last bus back (We noticed how often we catch the bus/train last minute. Lady luck seemed to smile upon us regularly:))

On our way back, there was a number of people on bicycle forcing their way through the heavy rain and up the slope. That was when I was really thankful for not choosing the bicycle. I was able to appreciate the sceneries on our way back better than I was on the bicycle despite the rain. Alas, the camera's battery went down at that time:(

We left SML for Taichung and from Taichung, we took a train to KaoHsiung. It was suppose to be an express train (not high speed) but we had to stand for 2.5 hours coz there were no more seats since we purchased the tickets 20 minutes before the train departed.

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Will blog more on other parts of Taiwan coz my lower back is aching. After 2 weeks of complaint to the office, my desk has yet to arrive!!!! Lying prone with laptop at the same level as my body for the past 2 weeks is killing me.