For the Republic of Taiwan ‘s 108th birthday we had a long weekend so, I decided to head to one of my favorite areas of Kaohsiung’s immense countryside that I haven’t visited in a long time . Cishan 旗山 , Meinong 美濃 and Liugui 六龜.
I had many places on my itinerary to visit but this old road and tunnels were not one of them. I had seen the pictures of these tunnels before on Instagram and other places but thought that they were more in the mountains and with me on the scooter wouldn’t be able to or have the time hike and bike around looking for them. Luckily for me, they are very close to the new road.
While I was driving back from Liugui 六龜 to Cishan 旗山 I stopped for a second along the road to enjoy in the beautiful scenery and a take a couple pictures and I looked to the side and saw this bridge. I climbed down the road and walked along the river a bit and up the hill and bingo it was the road and the tunnels!
The road was built in 1937 because the Japanese wanted to open up the area and easily get to the camphor trees. The Japanese cut down camphor trees for medical and industrial purposes. So the road was built and Liugui opened up.
The tunnels were built through the 18 Arhats Mountains 十八羅漢山 and the road closed down in 1992 with the opening of the new road.
I was more than pleasantly surprised to find the old road and walk in the tunnels. I couldn’t check out every one of the six tunnels as there was water and mud in one of them so a dead end for me.
If you want to find these amazing tunnels and do a nice explore, walk or bike, google Eighteen Arhats Mountain Scenic Area 十八羅漢山 and look to the right and of course say Hi!
Formosa>Ex 
Well do I recall a trip through those tunnels on a bus much like the one pictured. That was a SLOW road back then. The widened one that DOESN’T go through the tunnels is much to be preferred. Hope you enjoyed getting to do both roads.
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Yeah, I really like the “new” road. A really beautiful road. But yeah was cool to see how it was. Thanks for the comment
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