Sun Moon Lake

LakesNantou,Taiwan

Taiwan's largest lake, named for a sun-and-moon shape that a dam erased when it raised the water twenty metres and drowned the island dividing them.

September·Edge of season

Sep

Heat and typhoon risk ease through the month, and on one Sunday the year-round swimming ban lifts for the three-kilometre crossing from Chaowu Pier to Ita Thao. Outside that day the lake is quiet, and the heavy dawn mist has not started yet.

Year-round Taiwan's largest lake sits at 748 metres; mist-lifting dawns, the shore temples, Lalu island and the 30-kilometre cycle path stay year-round. Seasonal: winter blossoms, spring fireflies, the September swim, the wet, hazy summer.

Sun Moon Lake is the largest body of fresh water in Taiwan, 7.93 square kilometres of it at 748 metres in the hills of Nantou. Mornings are why people stay the night: mist lifts off water still flat as glass, and the ridges behind it separate into pale layers. A cycle path of about 30 kilometres follows the shore, and its finest stretch, the Xiangshan boardwalk, runs out low over the lake itself. Boats circle the wooded island of Lalu, but nobody steps ashore. After the 1999 earthquake sank most of the island it was given back its Thao name and left to the Thao. They are some 800 people, recognised as a distinct nation only in 2001, and they hold that their highest ancestral spirit lives in a tree there. The lake is named for a shape that no longer exists. Until the 1930s Lalu divided a natural lake into a round eastern half, the sun, and a slim western crescent, the moon. Then Japanese engineers dammed the outlet, bored a tunnel to bring in water from the Zhuoshui River and lifted the surface by roughly twenty metres. That drowned Thao farmland, two shoreline temples and all but a stub of the island. What replaced the shape is a working machine, and the water level now moves with Taiwan's electricity demand. Climb the 46-metre Ci'en Pagoda, raised by Chiang Kai-shek in 1971 for his mother, and its tip stands exactly 1,000 metres above the sea. Swimming is banned all year but one Sunday each September, when more than 20,000 people wade in at Chaowu Pier and cross the three kilometres to Ita Thao. From Wenwu Temple on the northern shore you look straight down the length of the water.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The mist is warm lake water meeting cold air — it builds on autumn and winter dawns after a cold night, and it is usually gone by nine.
The full shore loop is about 30 kilometres, three hours of pedalling — parts of it share the road with cars, and the climb to Wenwu Temple is the one that hurts.
Ci'en Pagoda costs a 700-metre climb through the woods before you even reach the stairs. Go late in the day, when low sun rakes the water and the far ridges pull apart.
Tape red cellophane over your torch if you come for the April fireflies — white light scatters them, and the official viewing sites at Taomi and Toushe ask for it.
The September crossing must be entered months ahead — there is no signing up on the day. If you are only watching, Chaowu Pier is where the swimmers go in.

Things to do

1
Catch the dawn mist from Shuishe Pier
Be on the boards before the first boat starts its engine. Mist sits on the water in sheets, the mountains behind it flatten into grey layers, and the whole lake holds still until the sun burns through it. You will have it to yourself: swimming is banned here every day but one, when more than 20,000 people cross the three kilometres from Chaowu Pier in the world's largest mass open-water swim.
2
Look down the lake's length from Wenwu Temple
The temple sits high on the north shore, and from the terrace beyond its red-and-gold gate the water runs away from you end to end. Inside, three halls stack up the hill — the God of Literature below, Confucius at the top.
3
Ride the Xiangshan boardwalk over the water
The western bike path leaves the road and runs out on stilts just above the lake, so close that the water moves under your wheels. Rent at Shuishe and ride it in the early morning, before the day's traffic arrives.
4
Circle Lalu, the island nobody may land on
Boats circle the island but tie up only at floating platforms set in the water around it; the ground itself stays closed. From the rail you can pick out the bishopwood the Thao planted on it in 2000, and a Japanese-era stone tablet still standing in the shallows. Large owl carvings stand on the platforms — the bird the Thao count as a blessing on a pregnant house.
5
Ride the ropeway up over the ridge
The cable car climbs steeply out of Ita Thao and hangs you above the treetops. From the top of the arc the whole lake opens below you: the broad eastern basin that was once called the sun, and the narrower western arm that was the moon.

Watch

Nearby

40 km