This gentle walk in Nantou County has to be one of the easiest of Taiwan’s Xiao Bai Yue. From Songboling Shoutian Temple, rural lanes take you on a gentle ramble through tea plantations, pineapple patches, and decommissioned military bunkers.
DISTANCE: 6.8 kilometres.
TIME: 2-3 hours should be plenty.
TOTAL ASCENT: A little under 50 metres.
DIFFICULTY (REGULAR TAIWAN HIKERS): 1/10 – This is an easy walk along rural roads and farming lanes.
DIFFICULTY (NEW HIKERS): 1/10 – Even for those new to walking in Taiwan, this is a very easy wander.
SIGNAGE: There’s some signage but it’s not especially helpful.
FOOD AND WATER: We filled up our water bottles at Songboling Shoutian Temple. 0.5L should be ample.
SHADE: This walk is completely exposed.
MOBILE NETWORK: The phone signal is clear throughout.
ENJOYMENT: This is a mild and gentle walk with rural characteristics. It’s not overwhelmingly pretty, but it’s a pleasant change from Taipei scenery.
SOLO HIKE-ABILITY: This is definitely a walk that you can feel safe doing solo.
BATHROOM FACILITIES: There are toilets in the temple complex at the start/end, some more part way along the trail, and yet more at the second temple.
TAIWAN 100 MINOR PEAKS: No. 51, Mount Songbokeng.
ROUTE TYPE: Loop with a little lollipop stick.
PERMIT: None needed.
Jump to the bottom of this post for a trail map and GPX file.
DIRECTIONS:
We decided to begin and end our walk at Songboling Shoutian Temple, a grand and lively religious establishment that has been attracting worshippers for over 300 years. This was our second time visiting the place, and on both occasions it has been a hive of activity.
When we arrived, a huge group comprised of several bus-loads of worshippers from Sanchong had just rocked up and was getting ready to enter the temple. The Sanchong group had brought their idols with them, some carried in arms and some borne aloft in palanquins that ducked and weaved through the crowds guided by godly whims. Other gods were there in the form of divine spirit mediums – men and women who are capable of channeling the spirit of a specific deity. This latter group strutted and strolled across the plaza, eyes half closed and causing people to duck out of their way. One such medium had a pointy, serrated bone from a swordfish and was using it to beat his bare back. Self-mortification is part of the deal for a specific subset of spirit mediums.
Each troupe generated their own detritus – confetti, ash, little piles of fire, and there were several temple attendants going around after them to sweep up and douse flames.
Inside was no calmer either. A tightly packed stream of people made their way to the central altar’s censer to bathe in the perfumed smoke. Teresa had been planning to consult the gods for advice on a personal matter, but seeing how busy it was, we decided to come back later instead.
Before setting off, we filled our water bottles with tea from the temple’s row of teapots, then headed back to the rear of the temple.
Turning right out of the gate, we headed up Songshan Street past a long row of vendors selling the region’s specialties: tea and ginger.
The road splits in row, and we stayed on Songshan Street until we passed through the paifang archway in front of the temple’s main carpark. Just before passing the carpark, we turned right onto Nantou District Road 42.
Almost instantaneously, we found ourselves away from the crowds, and within a couple of hundred metres, we were in farmland. At the next junction, the route we were following took a right onto an unnamed agricultural road lined by rows of tea and pineapples. (The walk later loops back to this spot.)
This parcel of land that the loop encircles is called Qixing Battlefield Park or Seven Star battlefield Park (七星陣地公園). In the past, the Bagua Mountain escarpment (which Mount Songbokeng sits on the tail of) was a strategic defensive position. Over 20 fortifications were built on its broad flat top to allow soldiers to oversee the Changhua Plains and Zhuoshui Creek. Of those, 7 in the vicinity of Shoutian Temple and Mount Songbokeng have been maintained and/or repurposed to function as a kind of military tourist attraction.
At the time of our visit, several had been turned into temporary galleries for local art and history.
Some of the bunkers have steps that you can climb up to get a better view of the surrounding area.
Pineapples and bright red earth. The field on the right looked like it had previously had pineapples planted in it and was being turned over in preparation for a new crop. There was a gaggle of mynas glued to the digger’s every move. Each time it moved a pile of earth, they would swoop down to pluck something tasty from the soil.
Another of the bunkers surrounded by rows of tea.
After passing the third roadside fortification and a small toilet block, the route takes a right turn down another nondescript road. (We initially took the left road here but found out that we’d made a mistake when it terminated in a dead end.)
A farmer had just turned on the sprinklers, so we got a light misting as we passed this tea field. A little further, we came across a few parcels of land growing dragon fruit and I learnt that some farmers string up rows of lights in their fields so that their crops receive 24/7 light. Why? It enables them to grow quicker. In the evening, we drove past a few fields that were all lit up. I don’t know how I had never noticed them before, they’re really rather obvious once you know what you’re looking at.
A tea farmer tending to his plants.
Somewhere around here, the track begins to loop back to the right and we found ourselves on the homeward-bound stretch of the walk. We passed a huge tea-processing facility belonging to the Magic Hand tea company, and beyond that, we turned left, on Nantou District Road 42 once more.
Here, we passed the second temple of our walk, Ying Ma Temple (應媽廟). This one is different to the other one in that it is not a temple for gods, instead it’s a shrine dedicated to the spirit of an unknown deceased woman (or maybe women).
Rural scenes from our journey back to where we had started.
It took us a little under two hours to complete a very gently paced loop and make our way back to Shoutian Temple.
We’d expected it to be somewhat quieter than it had been earlier on, but we were wrong. a steady stream of visiting temples was still pouring though the doors.
Mediums were doing their thing all over the place and the incense was thicker than ever. With the late-afternoon sun filtering through, the atmosphere was quite something.
Teresa decided to go ahead and try to ask the gods for their advice despite the business, but the answer wasn’t particularly favouarable, so after thanking them for their input, we packed up and headed back to the car.
HOW TO GET TO MOUNT SONGBOKENG
Google Maps address: The walk starts and ends at Songboling Shoutian Temple. The temple has a couple of big carparks and some roadside parking too.
GPS location: The loop section of the walk starts at N23 49.900 E120 38.305
Public transport: Public transport isn’t all that helpful for this walk. There is a bus service (6928/6928A) between here and Nantou, but it’s unlikely that you’ll be in Nantou in the first place.
MOUNT SONGBOKENG TRAIL MAP
GPX file available here on Outdoor Active. (Account needed, but the free one works just fine.)
Taiwan Trails and Tales 