I visited the most overrated attraction in Asia’s most underrated country

I’m elbow deep in a crowd of a few hundred people when the regret starts to kick in. The alleyway, while quaint, is also crammed with more people than should ever walk through the narrow corridors of this mountain town, tourists whose top speed is a mindless shuffle. I’ve seen Centrelink queues move faster than this, and as the person in front of me holds up the line to adjust their selfie stick, I start to think that coming to Jiufen might have been a mistake.

Jiufen is a mountain town about an hour outside of Taipei. It was made famous thanks to people erroneously believing that it was the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, Spirited Away, although the man himself has denied the connection. What we’re left with is a historic mining town with great views, lantern-lit alleyways, and gorgeous teahouses.

This sounds pretty good on paper, but the problem is that 20,000 other tourists are reading from the same page.

My journey to Jiufen starts in a town called Ruifang, a transit hub that people use before catching a bus up the mountain. I actually like Ruifang. It’s beautiful, in an industrial way, with great street markets, an abundance of noodle shops, and a charming river that is dotted with the occasional cafe.

I first start to doubt my decision when I get to the bus stop and see the queue. The only longer lines I’ve seen on my travels were for a Maccas in Moscow, which is a story for another day. Still, there is that annoying voice in the back of my head that tells me I should see Jiufen, even though my heart knows I’m going to have a bad time.

So I wait for the bus, then I wait in traffic as my bus competes with all the other buses, before finally being dropped outside the last thing you want to see when travelling to a historic mining town: the fluorescent lights of a 7-Eleven.

There are 7-Elevens around Taiwan that serve tap beer, and you can only imagine my disappointment when this turns out not to be one of them. With nothing to anaesthetise my growing anxiety from the excessive crowds, I elbow my way into the claustrophobic alleyways, hoping to find a spot where I can feel a little less like a tourist and look out over the admittedly gorgeous view.

For a brief moment, I think I’ve struck gold. An alleyway with no one, a ledge on which I can perch, and a spectacular view of the mountains. It lasts about 30 seconds before someone walks up behind me playing music from Spirited Away on their phone. And while I love Studio Ghibli as much as the next child trapped in the body of a 37-year-old man, this is too much. It makes me long for the days when we could sit and pretend, for a moment, that our lives don’t need soundtracks.

Sensing my spiralling discontent, my wife suggests that we skip eating in Jiufen and head back down to Ruifang, where our dinner consists of some exceptional beef noodles and a pork bun cooked in a Chinese-style tandoor oven. This pork bun is so hot that it scalds every tastebud out of my mouth, one final insult to an injured evening.

There are very few countries that I love as much as Taiwan. It is, in my opinion, the most underrated destination in Asia, and maybe one of the most underrated destinations in the world. The people are absurdly kind, the food is beyond exceptional (when it’s not giving you third-degree burns), and there are so many amazing towns to explore – ones that I was lucky enough to see thanks to cycling around the country.

Go to Chishang and spend a day rolling through rice paddies, eat your way through Chiayi and put on a few kilos, or chill in Taitung and explore the gorgeous eastern shores of the island nation. These towns stole my heart, whereas Jiufen only stole what dwindling respect I have for mass tourism. It was less of a town, more of an amusement park, and this is one traveller who was not amused.

THE DETAILS

FLY
China Airlines offers non-stop flights to Taipei from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. See china-airlines.com

EAT
If you do find yourself in Ruifang, you could do worse than eat at Keng Chi Beef Noodle Restaurant. Some of the best beef noodles I had in Taiwan. See gengjiniourou.weebly.com

The writer travelled at their own expense.