Taiping Suspension Bridge/Taiping 36 Bends (太平雲梯/太平三十六彎)

I’d venture to guess most visitors to Taiwan have never heard of the Taiping Suspension Bridge or the Meishan area of Chiayi. Although this part of Taiwan is not as highly marketed as spots like Alishan and Sun Moon Lake, it’s absolutely gorgeous and wonderful for sunset viewing.

Meishan offers multiple man-made and natural attractions in one: the suspension bridge hanging between mountains, the crazy winding mountain road jutting out into the sky, hiking trails slicing through tea fields, a view of Chiayi city in the distance, and if you’re lucky, a sea of clouds. That means at sunset time, you have multiple great options.

The Taiping Suspension Bridge is fun to take pictures of, as well as from.

Be wary, though, once you enter the trail on the other side of the bridge, you can’t go back to the bridge. You have to take the trail all the way around the mountain and out down the road from the bridge. The trail goes through pretty tea fields and isn’t hard (you could do it in around 30 minutes), but it strangely doesn’t have any restroom access.

On our first time to the area, we wanted to linger around the bridge until sunset but thought, ‘why not explore the trail?’ Then realized you can’t really see the sunset from the trail. After that we rushed back up the road and ran to the bridge (it was closed, but the staff kindly let us go to the scenic platform just beyond the entrance). From there, the sunset is wonderful!

After that, we hurried up the road a few minutes to the viewing platform of the Taiping 36 Bends, the insane winding road that you might have seen in some photographs of the area (taking pictures of it is definitely much more relaxing than driving it!) From there we caught the end of the sunset and the beginning of the night view above Chiayi.

Driving is your best bet for getting to this part of the country. Besides the windy 36 Bends section near the bridge, the rest of the drive up from Chiayi is not too bad and takes less than an hour. If you plan to go beyond the bridge, some of the roads get quite narrow, and it’s not for everyone.

It is worth noting for those wanting to avoid driving, there is a bus (7315A Monday – Saturday, 7315 on Sunday) that stops right at the bridge parking lot. Though there are only two of those buses going there and back to Chiayi per day, and the last one back is at 13:00. There is another bus (the 107) that goes to Meishan, and from there could take another bus to Chiayi if needed. Though the last 107 from Taiping Suspension Bridge is 17:30 on weekdays and 18:10 on weekends, so still cutting it close for sunsets.

Also of note, at the time of writing, the bridge closes at 17:30 and is closed on Wednesdays.