Sun Moon Lake

Sun Moon Lake

From Lukang, we took the bus to Taichung, and then a second on to Sun Moon Lake.  It is called Sun Moon Lake because the little Lalu island is said to be shaped on one side like the sun and the other like a crescent moon. We came here because it is the biggest - in fact the only big - natural lake in Taiwan, and we had seen some lovely photos of it.

Sadly, this was one of those cases where reality didn't live up to expectation. The lake may be the biggest, but it still isn't all that big, and I don't know whether they used old photos, used Photoshop, or just found one very careful angle to take their photos from, but we weren't seeing the same scene that they did.

We stayed around the lake in Ita Thao, which was probably a mistake, as the bus doesn't run in the evenings and there aren't many places to eat or have a drink there. The other side has more. Also, from Ita Thao, you look out to the more built up area.

So we weren't that impressed with Sun Moon Lake. It didn't help that it was misty and raining most of the time we were there, so there was no point in taking a boat trip, or doing the cable car, because there was generally no view to be had. Perhaps if we'd have had some decent weather we would have felt differently.

We did find a nice tea shop though. That was good.