Taiwan Travel Guide – Chiayi

Chiayi City is a laid-back, friendly country town of around 270,000 people and is the access point for trips to the scenic mountain area of Alishan. It’s not necessary to stay here as buses leave quite frequently, but I did spend two nights here and found it a pleasant place to base myself to make a more leisurely one-day trip to Alishan.

Getting There: Transportation Options

HSR Chiayi (Taibao) station is on the high-speed line between Taipei (1½ hr, NT$1,080) and Kaohsiung. The HSR station is over 15 km out of town, but linked to the city by the Chiayi BRT system.

Chiayi is also served by mainline TRA trains and the scenic narrow-gauge Alishan Forest Railway to Alishan, which both leave from the same station, but have separate ticketing counters. The Alishan Forest Railway was severely damaged by Typhoon Morakot in 2009. As of January 2015, the train runs from Chiayi to Fencihu only, with the remainder of the line still closed for repairs. The local lines within the recreation area are operating normally.

Long-distance buses leave from the terminal immediately outside the station, but local buses (notably those to nearby hot spring town Guanzihling) use the Zhongshan Rd bus terminal a few hundred meters down the street.

Getting Around Chiayi

The Chiayi Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system has three lines, with the main line linking the HSR and TRA railway stations. The trip between the two takes around 30 minutes (NT$40, exact change – no charge if going directly between the HSR & TRA stations), but note that the BRT stop is on the rear side of the TRA station, so you need to take the pedestrian bridge to cross to the other side. The location of the TRA station is not obvious from the BRT stop. If coming from the direction of the HSR railway, after you get off at the stop, cross to the other side of the street at the intersection you have just passed. The “back station” area is still under construction – bear to the right and you should find the pedestrian bridge. If coming from the TRA station, go to the far left when facing the station from the outside (past the taxi queue) and you will find signs and a pedestrian bridge upstairs that leads to some patchy BRT signs – BRT is on the ground floor, usually bus terminal 1 (likely to be a queue of other people) for a free ride to the HSR station.

Buses have announcements and signage in English as well as Chinese.

Taxis are plentiful, especially around the train stations, and some pidgin English is spoken.

Things to See and Do in Chiayi

• Culture Road is Chiayi’s main shopping street. Another shopping street, but more commercial and less cool, is Zhongshan Road (中山路) which stretches from the main train station to a roundabout public fountain area at Culture Road.
• There are two night markets in Chiayi, but the most famous and the best is the Culture Road night market (“Wunhua Rd Night Market”). The other night market, also fun and tasty, is the Carrefour Night Market next to the Carrefour store along Bo Ai Road.
• Chiayi is famous for its turkey rice (火雞肉飯), a popular dish of turkey strips and a savory sauce ladled over the white rice. It’s available at many sidewalk shops and indoor eateries around town, NT$20-40.
• The installation “Song of the Forest” (photo above) is located at the intersection of Wenhua Road and the TRA Main Line in Chiayi City. It’s a pleasant walk there from the station and pretty cool to visit. The tower symbolizes the sacred tree, the tunnel, and the track of Alishan Forest Railway to show the transition of light and the magnificence of Alishan.
• There are two movie theaters where you can experience watching both Western movies and Chinese-language movies in a theater packed with local Taiwanese viewers, young and old.
• There is a good bookstore called Hon-too Bookstore with a wide range of English-language magazines.
• For some quiet downtime, Chiayi Park and Botanical Gardens are a nice way to spend the afternoon. The Botanical Gardens provide pleasant trails that weave you through a large variety of plants and trees native to the area. Ponds hold Japanese koi fish, turtles, and frogs. Chiayi park is well-maintained and serves as a center of activity for local adults—and senior citizens—and children from 05:00 to late in the afternoon.
• Hinoki Village (檜意森活村), also called Cypress Forest Life Village, consists of 28 wooden Japanese-style dormitories as well as the Alishan Forest Club, director’s official residence, guest house, public bathhouse, etc.
• 2 Sun-Shooting Tower (射日塔). W-Su 09:00-17:00. The tower exterior designed was inspired by a giant sacred tree in Alishan. The brown aluminum pattern mimics the wood grain of the tree and the center is left with a 40-m-high empty space that mimics the crack in the center of that giant sacred tree. The interior bronze sculpture is inspired by the “Sun-Shooting” legend of Taiwanese aborigines. This bronze-made sculpture is 24 meters tall and 3 meters wide.
• Chiayi Old Prison (嘉義舊監獄). Tu-Su 09:30-11:30, 13:30-15:30 (closed M). A former prison building which now houses a museum of the prison system in Taiwan.
• Museum of Ancient Taiwan Tiles (台灣花磚博物館). W-Su 10:00-17:30. A tiling museum housed in an old Japanese-era lumbermill building.
• Chiayi Municipal Museum (嘉義市立博物館). The founding of the museum was a collective community effort in the hope to establish a cultural public space for all of the residents of Chiayi City. Among its displays are silk wrappings used to cover Tibetan Buddhist texts and an Islamic jade collection of the Qing emperors.
• Chiayi City Municipal Baseball Stadium (嘉義市立棒球場). M-F 08:00-17:30. A 10,000-seat stadium built in 1918, and refurbished frequently since. The stadium regularly holds Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) games.

Final Thoughts

I liked Chiayi. It’s a very pleasant small city and I could have spent a bit more time there. I recommend it as a base for visiting Alishan, whether you do so as a day trip or a multi-day visit.

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