Sun Moon Lake is a beautiful mountain and lakeside getaway two hours south of my parent’s hometown, Taichung. We stayed at the Lalu, which is one of, if not the most beautiful hotel in the area. Pro-tip, if you’re a traveler who prefers joining tours, the Signet tour to Sun Moon Lake has guests stay at the Lalu.
The Lalu Hotel Highlights
- Room Tips: The higher up your room is, the better the view of the lake and mountains, and obviously the price increases the further up you go. Even if you stay in one of the lower level floors, the lobby and bar are located on the top floor, so you can easily enjoy the view 🙂
- Packages: If you book your room as part of a package, you can choose a package that includes dinner at one of the restaurants and a 1-hour massage + spa access. Unfortunately, the tea room and Japanese restaurant were under construction during our stay. We opted for the western cuisine restaurant but would recommend people to try eastern.
- Dining: The continental breakfast gets a 9 out of 10. There’s a wide variety of cuisines to choose from: Chinese, Japanese, and some American options. You can order eggs cooked your way, and I particularly enjoyed the egg white omelet. Other favorites include freshly-made noodle soup.
- Staff & Amenities: The hotel staff is extremely friendly and helpful. There are nice amenities like the infinity pool, free tea tasting, and a library where you can borrow books and CDs (old school, but they still have CD players in the rooms so it makes sense).
Activities
Activities, tours, and bike rentals are all available in town, which is walking distance down the hill from the Lalu.
- Boat ride tour: The boat ride tour costs $300NT a person. It makes 4 stops to different islands and destinations around the lake, including the sky cable card ride.
- Sky cable car ride: One of the stops on the boat is the sky cable car ride, which also takes you to the aboriginal village. The cable car is a separate ticket for a regular cable car and a bit more for a cable car with a glass floor.
- Lakeside bike ride: You can also rent bikes from several shops in town. We took a bike ride along the lake, which is a really nice path. One of the destinations includes a temple, and another one that we visited was the flower gardens. It was perfect because the trees by the lake were changing colors.
Local Restaurant Recommendation
After chatting with different locals, most of them recommended Old Papa Black Tea. The town, Yuchi, is known for its black and red tea, along with its wild pork. Old Papa Black Tea specializes in wild pork rice and noodles. Our family loved it. It’s also BYOB 🙂
JULIENNE CARROTS 