Top 5 Less-Crowded Spots to Visit During Chinese New Year V / Narrower Than “Grope the Breast Alley”: The Gorge in Monkey Cave

Reported by Reporter You / Comprehensive Report

With the 9-day Spring Festival holiday, where’s the best place to go? This time, ETtoday EBC News Cloud has invited professional domestic travel expert Rou Lu to share 8 stunning and traffic-free hidden gems across Taiwan for the Lunar New Year. Covering all regions—northern, central, southern, and eastern Taiwan—there’s a scenic route for each day from the first to the eighth day of the New Year. As long as you have a car, you can easily take your whole family on the trip.

[Hsinchu - Monkey Cave Trail]
 
▲ The most famous “One-Line Sky” attraction in Monkey Cave is so narrow that only one adult can enter sideways. (Photo / Provided by Rou Lu. From “Wow! Taiwan Should Be Played Like This: 50 Happy One-Day Light Travel Routes”)

The approximately 800-meter-long Monkey Cave Trail is said to have been named after a monk built a stone water tank to provide drinking water for the monkeys in the mountains when they couldn’t find any. Hence the name “Monkey Cave.” The most famous attraction in Monkey Cave, the “One-Line Sky” (一线天), can only be reached by entering from beside Guanyin Zen Temple, climbing a steep uphill path to reach Golden Turtle Rock, and then entering the gorge.

The One-Line Sky, which is only wide enough for one adult to enter sideways, has moss-covered walls on both sides, and visitors must pull on a rope to get through. The narrow cave is breezy inside, like a natural air-conditioned room, giving a feeling of entering a magical hidden world. Rou Lu especially recommends that visitors, if they come to the Monkey Cave One-Line Sky, go up and down a few times to fully experience the feeling of leaning against the giant natural rocks and blending with nature. At the entrance to Monkey Cave at Golden Turtle Rock, you can also see a monkey statue with its ears covered.


▲ At the entrance to Monkey Cave at Golden Turtle Rock, you can also see a monkey statue with its ears covered. (Photo / Provided by Rou Lu)

Suggested Itinerary: Monkey Cave: One-Line Sky → Ruanqiao Community: Thousand-People Painted Houses → Have lunch at Guanxi Anggu Noodles → Visit Taiwan Black Tea Culture Museum → Go to Gaoping Tomato Farm → Enjoy afternoon tea with scallion pancakes near Guanxi Station → Visit Herb Museum Eco-Farm