Original subtitles

Escape with us on a journey around

one of the world's most beautiful islands.

A beguiling blend of the old and the new.

We'll travel on three remarkable railways...

..find inner peace in ancient rituals...

When you do this right, you can feel the calm of the tea.

..and wonder at what nature can create over millions of years...

You've got to come to see the Marble Gorge.

..and destroy in seconds.

The old bridge would easily fall apart

when it's shaken by an earthquake wave.

We'll meet the people that live and work along the line...

It's very beautiful and it will touch your heart.

..on our way to the very top of one of the world's great mountain lines.

This is no ordinary railway journey -

..this is one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world.

Taiwan.

Our journey begins at the western edge of the Pacific Ocean,

where the port city of Hualien lies in the shadow of mountains

swathed in tropical forests.

At the railway station, resplendent after a 2018 face-lift,

it's shortly before ten in the morning.

At Platform 3B, the last few northbound passengers are boarding.

The Chu Kuang Express, propelled by a E200 electric locomotive.

We're moving now.

It pulls away right on time at 09.54.

Joining us is rail journalist and lifelong train enthusiast Tingwei.

I always loved the train.

When I was, like, three years old,

I began to ask my parents

to take me on the train.

Tingwei will be our companion

for the first leg of a journey packed with the very best

Taiwan has to offer.

Taiwan lies at the edge of the Pacific Ocean

just off the coast of China.

As we head north from Hualien,

we'll take in the epic landscapes of the Taroko National Park

and the stunning Yilan coast

on our way to the capital - Taipei.

Then, we'll hurtle down the west side of the island

on a high-speed line

as far as Chiayi city.

From there, we'll head into the central highlands

on the historic Alishan Forest Railway

where we'll end our journey with a vintage locomotive trip

amidst the stunning Alishan Mountains.

Railway's a very good, comfortable way of travel.

You can just relax and enjoy the scenery.

People who are heading to northeast just sit at right side -

and it's right

cos we can see the sea!

Dominated by row upon row of mountains

that rise from the Pacific,

Taiwan's east coast is its least populated region by far.

Less than 5% of the island's 23.5 million inhabitants live here.

Well, in the east coast line you see amazing cliffs,

beautiful rocks

and very, very natural without any houses or highways.

We're approaching our first stop.

Now we are arriving in Xincheng station.

We're on the edge of one of the most spectacular places in the world.

And, just three miles inland from Xincheng,

is the entry point to the Taroko National Park.

Its 920 square kilometres account

for some of Asia's most astonishing scenery.

Rising from just above sea level...

..to more than 3,700 metres.

Most days, the landscape also includes Sandra.

A park veteran with 24 years' guiding experience,

she knows exactly where visitors should head to first.

If you come to Taiwan, you don't come to Taroko Gorge,

that means you've never been to Taiwan.

So, you got to come to see the Marble Gorge.

Taroko Gorge is the product of Taiwan's extraordinary geology.

The island lies at the junction of tectonic plates.

Over millions of years,

the collision between them has forced this landscape skywards.

The tectonic movement lift up all the rock from the ocean bed

up to the ground. Now you see it.

This is the best scenery in Taiwan.

The lofty peaks are beautiful enough...

..but it's Taroko Gorge's walls that make it truly unique.

As the mountains formed over millions of years,

river erosion carved a swathe through them

and exposed hundreds of metres of marble

that would otherwise be hidden underground.

The river cutting and land kept rising

and so it create this very, very sheer marble gorge

you see now.

Viewed from ground level,

Taroko Gorge is a remarkable sight.

But, since August 2020,

the park's newest attraction...

..has offered visitors an even better perspective.

Here, we come to the Zhuilu Suspension Bridge.

This is a amazing spot.

You no need to walk long distance

and, then, you can go and see straight down to the Taroko Gorge.

And the gorge is just magnificent.

The bridge itself is 196 metres long

and the width is 2.5 metres wide.

From here to the bottom of the river is 152 metres.

You've got to come and see it.

Next, we're back on the train...

..and we exchange Taiwan's ancient landscapes

for its ultra-modern capital

as we continue our journey

to the awe-inspiring Alishan Forest Railway.

We're almost 20 miles

into our journey along Taiwan's Pacific coast

and there's no end in sight

to the magnificent scenery.

You can see the Qingshui Cliff now. It's, yeah, it's amazing.

Well, here comes the tunnel.

On the next leg of our route,

we'll cross from Hualien County into its neighbour, Yilan.

We'll then leave the Pacific behind,

as we head inland to Taiwan's capital, Taipei.

You can see the paddy fields now.

It's like mirror.

Yilan is more densely populated than Hualien.

It's cloudier, too.

In the wintertime, if you go closer to north,

the weather is worse!

It's still very beautiful.

Even in the very bad weather, you can feel the nature,

feel the scenery,

feel the shape of this country.

I think that's very, very great.

The railway isn't the only way to enjoy the coastal scenery.

In Yilan County,

it runs alongside one of this cycle-crazy country's

most popular bike routes.

This is cycle route number one

which circles the entire island...

..covering 600 miles.

Keen riders, like Linda and Molly,

enjoy it whenever they can.

People in Taiwan really enjoy cycling because we have, like,

perfect environment here.

We are a bike country.

Bike kingdom!

You know, it seems really normal to us that,

"Oh, yeah, let's do the cycling trip this weekend."

It's a very normal thing in Taiwan.

Cycle route number one cost £26 million to complete...

..and is a great asset to the country.

You have mountain on one side, ocean on the other,

and the concept of time feels different.

It's slowed down.

You can cycle a little bit

and stop anywhere you want to

and enjoy the nature.

It's really feeling the breeze and feeling free.

It feels carefree!

And it's flat so you don't have to exhaust yourself.

Which means, that when you make it to Taiwan's most easterly point...

Oh, wow!

..you'll have plenty of energy left to celebrate.

We made it! Yay!

So, after 24 metre's ride finally we are here -

this is the Sandiaojiao lookout.

It wasn't that hard.

Mm. It was pretty easy

if you consider the beautiful scenery you see along the way.

It's just very rewarding.

For those heading back to civilisation

after a hard day in the saddle,

the railway lends a helping hand.

The Old Caoling Tunnel - a mile and a half stretch of former railroad -

makes the ride home a much easier one.

Our journey now heads towards the capital.

Tingwei has joined a regional train...

..a Korean built EMU 500...

..where he's sharing his carriage with local fishermen and farmers.

If I have enough time, I always chose to take local train.

Travelling on a local train is so much fun.

You get to see, like, the real life of people

so, if you want to feel the real thing,

I think local train's maybe a must.

It's getting towards lunchtime.

With buffet cars and food trolleys a rarity on Taiwanese trains,

our next stop, in Fu Long,

is a very welcome one.

There's not much to Fu Long.

The beach pulls in a few surfers

but, otherwise, it's a sleepy place.

With one exception.

On a weekday morning,

Fa Chi Bento is a hive of activity.

An ultra-efficient food production line

delivering up to 600 bento boxes an hour.

Head chef, A-Fa, founded this family business 23 years ago.

Bentos originated in Japan.

These meals in boxes became popular in Taiwan while the island was

under Japanese occupation in the early 20th century.

Nowadays, their practicality makes them

the go-to meal for train travellers.

But, these bentos have closer ties to the railway than most.

A-Fa and his family used to sell them

from the platforms at Fu Long station.

The platform selling ended abruptly

with the advent of air-conditioned trains.

You can't pass a bento box through a window that doesn't open.

But the food at Fa Chi remains so popular

that hungry travellers still stop to eat at Fu Long.

Hunger sated, we're on the move again.

We're heading inland

into a very different landscape.

Now we are entering, er, the Taipei basin.

Taiwan's capital and its suburbs are home

to almost a third of the island's population.

So, we can see so many mansions, houses, some factories.

Yeah, it's quite a different place.

Like many modern cities,

Taipei hides much of its transport infrastructure from view.

Here comes the tunnel!

The last eight miles to the city centre are underground.

And now we are approaching Taipei

and it is the end of this part of the journey.

Right. Let's go.

Our stay in the capital will be a brief one.

Tomorrow, our pace will quicken...

..as we hurtle on one of the world's fastest trains

towards the stunning mountains of central Taiwan.

It's late morning in Nangang in southeastern Taipei.

We're about to set off on the next leg of our journey.

We'll be travelling south across

the more populated western side of Taiwan.

We'll stop off at the ruins of Longteng Bridge

as we travel to Chiayi city,

gateway to the magnificent Alishan Forest Railway.

It's a 160 mile journey...

..but we'll be there in barely 90 minutes...

..because we're travelling

on one of the most advanced trains ever to take to a track.

This sleek beauty is a THSR 700T.

From the same bloodline as the Japanese bullet trains,

it's every bit as fast as it looks.

Soon the landscape is flashing by.

Sipping on his business class coffee

is Taiwan high-speed rail section chief Dr Sung Hung-Kang -

a man surely itching to brag about

his trains' staggering top speed of 186mph?

Or their massive 10.26 megawatt power output?

Well, not exactly.

Forget the speed,

relish the reliability.

An astounding 99.96% of Taiwan's high-speed trains arrive

exactly on schedule.

But, punctuality isn't the only source of pride for Dr Sung -

..his railway is also, arguably, the safest on the planet.

Whatever the emergency,

the system will alert central control

and, if necessary, automatically bring trains to a halt.

It might need to be one day.

Earthquakes are an inevitable fact of life in Taiwan.

And railways aren't immune.

A few kilometres from the high-speed rail line,

geologist and railway expert Jing-Heng is at a site

that shows just how destructive nature in these parts can be.

We're looking at the Longteng Bridge.

It was built in 1907 as part of the trunk line

that connected Taipei and Gaujung.

No trains have passed this way since April 1935...

..when a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck -

..its epicentre just ten miles from here.

Felt across the country,

it destroyed 30,000 homes...

..and left 3,000 people dead.

The death toll was the highest in Taiwanese history

and the old bridge was built with bricks and stones, as you can see,

and they're just stuck with cement

so they easily fall apart when it's shaken by an earthquake wave.

The bridge's pillars never stood a chance of surviving the tremors.

Even the aftershocks reached six on the Richter scale.

Many tourists think that, er,

the Longteng Bridge is all about those brick arches where we were

but, actually, where we're standing now looking at the stream,

was the place where the main bridge was.

The bridge was broken and they evaluated

and thought it is impossible to repair it

so they just built another new bridge to replace it.

The remains of the original bridge have carved out

an unlikely second life as a tourist attraction.

Listed as an historic site in 2003,

they continue to remind visitors of the havoc earthquakes can wreak.

For me, this bridge is also

a monument of the competition between human and nature.

And it's just lucky that it's preserved

because it's a important part of the railway history.

Back on the high-speed train,

our serene progress continues.

We're already nearing our destination,

and we're right on time -

of course.

We're not stopping in Chiayi -

..just exchanging one railway for another.

It's eight miles from the high-speed station to the city centre

and Chiayi's main station.

This is the departure point

for the final leg of our journey

on one of the world's greatest mountain lines -

the Alishan Forest Railway.

Our 28 tonne diesel locomotive is

unlikely to manage 186mph any time soon.

But no matter.

We're going to have a great journey

because this, er, railway is quite special.

Riding with us is railway volunteer Shu-Min,

a lady whose links to the line go back as far as she can remember.

I grew up near the Alishan railway

so I can just hear the train whistling sound every day.

TRAIN HORN BLASTS

So, I got deep emotion with it.

From Chiayi, this beautiful route climbs into the Alishan Mountains,

snaking its way around the remarkable Dulishan Loop,

on its way to Feng Chi Hu.

From there to Alishan,

the line is under reconstruction

following typhoon damage.

Then, it's open all the way to the stunning mountain viewpoint

at the end of the line.

This railway's quite old.

It's over 100 years old.

Er, Japanese built this railway.

It's finished in 1912, during Japanese occupation time.

The Japanese never envisaged this as a passenger line.

They built the railway

to ship timber harvested high in the mountains.

It was a mammoth feat of engineering

that took six years to complete.

The stretch we're approaching...

Now we're about 500 metres high.

..was the most challenging by far.

Duli Mountain is a railway architect's nightmare.

The lush vegetation conceals a 200 metre wall of rock.

The problem is there's barely any space for the line to climb it.

The solution is one of the great wonders of the railway world

and features 11 tunnels.

To gain altitude, the track makes two full circles,

passing both through and around Duli Mountain.

Towards the peak,

space becomes even more limited

so the ascent is competed with a figure of eight.

And now we are at the second loop.

And, er, this is tunnel five, number five.

It's a really amazing measure

to build this railway.

20 minutes later, and 200 metres higher...

..we finally emerge above the Dulishan Loop.

The tropical lowlands are now far below us.

We're climbing into the clouds.

Now we are about 1,000 metres high.

When you open the window...

..you see the air is different.

Outside you will see the mist.

It's very beautiful. It will touch your heart.

Soon, we reach the final station on this stretch of the railway.

RAILWAY ANNOUNCER SPEAKS

Set amidst stunning woodlands,

the village of Fenqihu feels

as much a part of the landscape as the railway.

But both are relative newcomers.

These forests were originally settled more than 5,000 years ago.

First to live here, as hunter gatherers, were

one of Taiwan's indigenous peoples - the Tsou.

Much has changed since then

but the Tsou remain an important presence.

In villages across the Alishan Mountains

nearly 7,000 maintain their unique customs and culture

beneath the peaks their ancestors first gazed upon so long ago.

The land provides in many ways.

Alishan Mountain tea is prized by connoisseurs

but commercial production in the region

only started a few decades ago.

Shu Jun's family owns one of the areas many plantations.

The low temperatures and cooling mists slow the tea's growth...

..allowing it to develop a deeper flavour before it's harvested.

A brew this good is worth taking the time to enjoy properly.

Tea ceremonies are both an art form and an important social ritual.

A chance to pause and reflect

while sharing in one of life's simplest pleasures.

Every movement in tea ceremony is very important.

When you do this right,

you can feel the calm of the tea.

Next, our journey reaches its climax

a vintage locomotive trip to a stunning mountain viewpoint.

We're approaching the climax of our epic voyage around Taiwan.

2,200 metres above sea level, this is Alishan station.

From here, we're about to travel

to the top of the Alishan Forest Railway on a very special train.

Leading the way, a diesel engine,

but, adding some extra heft at the rear,

a lovingly restored piece of railway history.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLASTS

This American built, 28 tonne, Shay locomotive

first travelled the line more than 100 years ago.

It's one of three the railway has reconditioned in recent years

to make visitors' journeys even more memorable -

..a great source of pride for employees like Ting-Choa.

We expect ourselves to become

the centre of this kind of steam locomotive.

It's not only a forest railway

but also a cultural heritage railway.

This one is the wooden carriage

which is made of Taiwanese cypress timber.

So, in Japanese period,

they used this kind of carriage.

On this train we can open the window

and you can feel the sunshine going into the carriage

and also smell the fresh air outside.

And these trees more than 100 years old.

When we pass through this forest

I feel very indulged in this atmosphere.

It's three and a half miles to the top of the line

and our destination.

Now we are arriving at Duigaoyue station.

A stone's throw from the platform...

..we reach our journey's climax.

This is a place which

a special railway journey should end

because you get this panoramic view

in front of us.

We're 2,400 metres above sea level...

..but Taiwan's tallest mountains still tower above us.

We can see there, that is the highest peak of Taiwan - Yu Shan.

At nearly 4,000 metres,

Yu Shan makes Taiwan the fourth highest island on the planet.

But, lofty peaks are

only half of what makes this viewpoint so special.

Come at the right time

and you'll find yourself looking down on a blanket of clouds.

If you can see all these mountains and peaks clearly,

then, people feel happy and excited.

But, even if there is this sea of clouds in all these mountains,

then, it will be another kind of splendid scenery.

What would be better?

We've been dazzled by one of the world's most dramatic coastlines...

..and witnessed what the sheer power of geology can do

over millions of years.

And, in the blink of an eye...

..we've travelled on the railways of the future

and of the past.

And, we've capped it all with a steam-propelled trip

to the majestic rooftop of Taiwan.