Chiayi
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A city in the central part of south-western Taiwan. Apart from being a good stopover point when travelling up or down the western side of Taiwan, Chiayi also offers a little dark-tourism treat in the form of an old prison from the Japanese colonial era that is now a museum.
More background info: Chiayi can trace its origins back to somewhere in the seventeenth century. It had a series of other names before finally being renamed Chiayi in the late eighteenth century.
Disaster hit in 1906, when a devastating earthquake almost completely flattened Chiayi. The city was subsequently rebuilt along the near straight grid pattern that we see today.
Chiayi’s economic significance was owed predominantly to the timber trade during the Japanese colonial era (see History of Taiwan). This was bolstered by the construction of the Alishan Forest Railway begun in 1907. This mountain railway line is a technological engineering feat climbing over 2000m in elevation along numerous Z-switchbacks, changing direction, to manage the climb. After the timber trade waned and new mountain roads provided quicker and easier access to the mountains, the railway line became primarily a tourist attraction … until the line was interrupted by a severe typhoon in 2009 (see history) that resulted in dozens of landslides, caused bridges to collapse and filled tunnels with mud. It took many years for repairs to make the line fully functional again – which finally happened only in July 2024.
What there is to see: there’s really just one somewhat significant site making it worth the while for a dark tourist to visit this city:
Other than that I have not been able to track down any other dark aspects. The devastating earthquake of 1906, for example, does not seem to be commemorated in any form (quite unlike the 9-21 Earthquake in Taichung!).
Location: in south-west central Taiwan, ca. 60 miles (100 km) north of Kaohsiung, ca. 50 miles (80 km) south of Taichung and 130 miles (210 km) from Taipei (all as the crow flies).
Google Maps locators:
Hinoki Village: [23.4859, 120.4546]
Alishan Forest Railway Park: [23.4855, 120.4503]
TRA station: [23.47919, 120.4411]
Access and costs: easy to get to by train; slightly less expensive than the bigger cities in Taiwan.
Details: Getting to Chiayi is easiest by train, either from the north (Taipei, Taichung) or the south (Kaohsiung). Regular TRA trains are more convenient than the separate High Speed Rail because the TRA station is located just to the west of the city centre, whereas the HSR station is almost ten miles (15 km) to the west of the city, necessitating an additional transfer (shuttle bus line 7211/12), which partly eats up the time saved by going on the high-speed trains. So unless you cannot tolerate three and a half hours on a regular train (from Taipei), TRA is the better option.
Getting around within Chiayi is easy enough on foot, if you don’t mind walking along often drab straight roads. Not all streets have proper pavements though, so with luggage I opted to take a taxi between the station and my hotel.
Accommodation options are not as varied as in other Taiwanese cities, but there are budget places as well as moderately swankier hotels.
As for food and drinks, Chiayi’s options for eating out are in no short supply, but you won’t find a lot of places with English menus (Chiayi is not touristy enough for that). But I was very happy with the vegetarian buffet restaurant I found, where I was even presented with a little piece of paper that explained in English how it works in such a place. I already knew that from similar places in Taipei, but I found it a nice gesture. You just grab a a plate and help yourself from the huge range of dishes at the buffet, then take your plate to the till to have it weighed. Even if you pile your plate really high it’s still a steal – and the quality in this place was possibly the best in terms of veggie buffets I had in Taiwan. Unfortunately I do not know its namefor sure (could have been “Guang Yi”), but I’m pretty certain it was located on Wufang N Road.
Drinks in such buffet places rarely extend beyond tea or sugary soft drinks, so I was glad to find that there was a cosy craft beer bar right next door to my hotel. This was called simply “Water x Yeast x Malt” after three of the four key ingredients for making beer (why hops were not included, I don’t know). It may not have had so many taps but there were fridges full of excellent brews from around the world – and the knowledgable barman/owner spoke just about good enough English to be of great assistance …
Time required: Not long. I spent one night in Chiayi, visiting Hinoki Village and the Alishan Forest Railway Park in the afternoon after I had I arrived, and went to Chiayi Old Prison the next morning, before heading back to the station for my onward train to Kaohsiung. So I had less than 24 hours here, but I felt that was probably sufficient.
Combinations with other dark destinations: nothing in the vicinity – but see under Taiwan in general.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: in general see under Taiwan.
As a city travel destination Chiayi cannot rival Taipei or Kaohsiung, of course, but it has its own subdued charms. To the north of the centre is Hinoki Village, a cluster of Japanese-style houses, mostly wooden and single-storey, originally built for the forestry executives (and their families). A few years ago these were completely refurbished and turned into a tourism hotspot. It’s mostly for shopping and snacking tourism, though. But some of the shops are worth a look around.
Just down the road is the Alishan Forest Railway Park, where train enthusiasts can drool over old steam engines and whole narrow-gauge trains. (See above for the historic significance of this railway.) Riding this mountain railway line has in itself become a tourist attraction (see above).
Those in search of temples can find some examples within Chiayi too, even on a grand scale, but in terms of genuinely historical edifices Chiayi cannot compete with Tainan further south.
