After one more chaotic breakfast at our hotel in Alishan our taxi picked us up for the 2.5 hour drive to Sun Moon Lake. We had booked at a hostel, but they must of been fully booked because they took us to a lakeside resort under the same name instead. It was a wonderful surprise upgrade. There was lots of greenery, and the room was cozy. After dropping our bags we started our exploring.

First we made the short walk to Shuishe Pier. At first, we were confused where to buy ferry tickets as there did not appear to be a ferry ticket office. A lady appeared and showed us tickets we could buy. With the help of translation apps we managed to confirm she was in fact selling the ones we wanted. The lake was beautiful with mountains surrounding it. The ferry ride to each stop was 10-20 minutes.

At our first stop we enjoyed a snack of delicious tea eggs. We walked up to Xuanguang Temple; the path continued after that all the way to Xuanzang Temple, which was beautiful. It had two large elephant statues in front of it, a few statues on the grounds, a wide entrance and a view of the lake.

From there we continued on a different path to get to the Ci’en Pagoda. This was recommended as the best view of the lake, and we had to agree with that assessment. All the stairs were worth it. The pagoda was tall with a great color scheme. It was well maintained and painted white and blue on the inside. There was a wrap around balcony on several levels, but we opted to just explore the highest one. The views included the lake, forests all around, mountains, and the other buildings near the pagoda. On the trail there we also saw a bug that looked like a cricket/scorpion hybrid, very scary. Google says it was a Taiwanese Whip Scorpion.

After making it back down the same trail we hiked up, we got back on the ferry to go to our second stop: Ita Thao. This stop was the perfect place for lunch. It had a recurring frog theme, which I enjoyed. There were adorable statues of frogs with babies in different positions and some food was frog shaped. Our first food item was frog shaped waffles on a stick. These were okay, but we thought they were dry without any fillings or toppings.

Nick enjoyed some bread that was cooked over a flame on a stick, covered in butter and salt. He also liked the pork skewers. My favorite was the candied strawberries on a stick. There were also grape tomatoes and cucumbers on sticks, but we only tried strawberries and grapes. We ended our street food tour with two soft serve ice creams. Mine was mango and Nick took mango and tea twist.

The ferry then dropped us off back where we started. It was a great way to explore the highlights of the lake. We walked along the lake’s pedestrian/bike path to get to Wenwu temple for sunset. The path was easy to follow and there were not that many stairs, which was nice. Unfortunately sunset was nothing spectacular; it was probably too cloudy.

Wenwu temple, though, was grand and had many places to explore. The complex was large with many floors that we went up, many sections dedicated to specific things, engravings, dragons, gardens, lanterns, and more. There was a section in the back with a grand staircase and engravings in stone. There were statues there too. I wished we had been able to get there earlier.

The hike back from the temple was mostly in the dark but luckily there were some lights on the path. There were a few monkeys lounging on the railings of the path. We saw a few fireflies which were pretty. Also impossible to get a photo or video of as it turns out. We saw plum trees, too. For dinner we went to 明潭茶老爸, or Old Papa Black Tea in English, where we had delicious cucumber salad, braised pork over rice, and passionfruit smoothies.

The next morning we rented bicycles. We did not have time to do the full bike around the lake, but we did a scenic section with many viewing platforms. The Sun Moon Lake Circular Walk from near our hotel all the way to the Xiangshan Visitor’s Center was 5km round trip. It was an easy bike ride with little elevation gain or loss. The path was sometimes in thicker forest, sometimes on a path that was a bridge over the lake itself, or alongside the lake. The views from each direction were nice and it was a peaceful activity.

After returning our bikes, Nick got fried mushrooms for lunch. There are mushrooms everywhere in Taiwan and he said they were super good. I opted for a sandwich from the 7-Eleven followed by sharing a strawberry kiwi popsicle. The popsicles tasted like they blended just the fruit up then froze them, they were so refreshing. One passion fruit smoothie to go and it was time to get our taxi to our next stop. Sun Moon Lake was wonderful. If we had a full second day we would have done the complete bike loop, but were happy with what we managed to do.