Not a Spa Hotel — the Village's Own Bathhouse

Drive south from downtown Taitung along Provincial Highway 9, down the South Link coast — past Taimali, past Duoliang Station — and in 50 minutes you reach Jinlun.

Jinlun is a small town. No big hotel signs, no tour buses, just a handful of noodle shops beside the railway station.

But in the alleys, you'll catch the smell of hot-spring water.

Turn into one lane, turn out of another — and almost every household has a soaking room of its own.

Kanaron — What the Paiwan Call This Place

In the Paiwan (排灣族) language, Jinlun is called "Kanaron," transliterated into Chinese as "虷仔崙." "Han-zi" (虷仔) is the Paiwan word for a kind of stream shrimp, and "lun" (崙) is a common place-name character — together meaning "the place where stream shrimp live."

That waterway is the Jinlun River, flowing out of the deep Central Mountain Range, tumbling over igneous and metamorphic rock along the way and dissolving their minerals into the water. About 5 kilometres before it meets the sea, the water rises through cracks in the riverbed — and this is the source of the Jinlun hot spring.

The Paiwan ancestors knew long ago that you could soak in this river. In the Japanese colonial era, the Japanese came to survey it and opened bathhouses too. After the war, ownership of the spring returned to the hands of the village's own people — which is why Jinlun's soaking rooms were never monopolised by hotel chains the way Zhiben's (知本) were.

Jinlun is a Paiwan family's bathhouse — and it just happens to let you soak alongside them.

The Care in a Single Pool of Water

The core facts of the Jinlun hot spring:

Detail	Description
Water type	Mildly alkaline sodium-bicarbonate spring (the so-called "beauty spring")
Colour	Clear and transparent
Smell	Faintly sulphurous (more noticeable than Zhiben)
Temperature	70–99°C (very hot; needs cold water to temper it)
pH	Around 7.5–8.5
Character	Silky to the touch, mineral-rich, good for easing aching muscles

The biggest difference from Zhiben (colourless and odourless) is this — Jinlun carries a faint trace of sulphur, so you can "feel that the hot spring is real."

Four Ways to Soak

Jinlun's soaking rooms fall roughly into four kinds:

1. Village-Run Private Soaking Rooms

The choice with the most "Jinlun flavour." Wooden, plain, far from luxurious — but the water is pure and the price is honest. NT$ 300–500 per hour.

2. In-Room Pools at Village Guesthouses

Stay a night at a village guesthouse and your room comes with its own soaking pool. Soak morning and evening, take your time, pair it with a Paiwan auntie's home cooking — this is the fullest experience of all. NT$ 2,500–5,000 per night.

3. Soaking Rooms with Mountain and Sea Views

The "East Sun SPA Hot Spring Resort" sits a little higher up, so its pools look out across the Pacific and the Jinlun River. Sunrise and sunset each have their own mood.

4. Wild Riverside Hot Springs

The upper Jinlun River has stretches of natural hot springs welling up in the open, and reaching them means a walk. No facilities, no fences, soak at your own risk. The terrain shifts easily after a typhoon, so the safest way is to have a local from the village guide you.

A local's advice: on your first visit to Jinlun, stay a night at a village guesthouse. The next morning, soak for an hour, walk down to Jinlun beach for the sunrise, then come back for a breakfast made by a Paiwan mother — that's the truest way to do Jinlun.

More Than the Hot Spring

Beyond Jinlun's water, there's the sea.

• Jinlun beach: a 5-minute walk from the soaking rooms to the Pacific. No crowds, no shops, just a stretch of raw, untouched coast.
• Jinlun Bridge: from the bridge you watch the Jinlun River meet the sea — the sunset here is something else.
• Jinlun Catholic Church: built in the 1960s with the help of an Italian priest, its architecture weaves in Paiwan imagery — one of the most story-laden corners of Jinlun.
• The noodle shop by Jinlun Station: a little place run by a local Paiwan mother, a 3-minute walk away — rice-noodle soup, millet mochi, grilled wild boar.

Pair It with the South Link

Time	Itinerary
09:00	Set out from downtown Taitung, heading south on Highway 9
10:00	Taimali First Light Memorial Park (an early start catches the sunrise here)
11:30	Duoliang Station, "the platform above the sea"
12:30	Lunch in Jinlun (the village mother's little noodle shop)
14:00	Soak in a Jinlun hot-spring room
16:00	A walk along Jinlun beach
17:30	Check in to a Jinlun village guesthouse
Next dawn	One more soak + the sunrise
Morning	South to Dawu, or back north to Zhiben for a forest bath

Easy Things to Miss

1. Dawu Mountain Nature Reserve (大武山自然保留區): Jinlun sits on the edge of the Dawu Mountain Nature Reserve, with some of the cleanest air in Taiwan and a high concentration of negative ions (one reason a soak here feels so good).
2. Paiwan glass beads + clay pots: Jinlun's village workshops offer hands-on making — a more meaningful gift for your elders than the usual souvenir.
3. Jinlun's old coastal-defence site: down by Jinlun beach stand the old bunkers of an early military garrison — few visitors go, and there's a real sense of history.
4. Paiwan ceremonies each year from May to July: during the Harvest Festival, the Five-Year Festival, and the Millet Festival, some soaking rooms close. Please respect the people's time.

Why Jinlun (and Not Only Zhiben)

Dimension	Zhiben	Jinlun
Development	High (many large hotels)	Low (mostly village soaking rooms)
Atmosphere	Commercial, lively	Quiet, deeply local
Water	Colourless, odourless	Faintly sulphurous, distinct to the touch
Budget	Mid–high	Low–mid
Best for	First-timers, elders, groups	Repeat visitors, the local-minded, crowd-avoiders
What comes with it	Hotel buffets, spas, a hot-spring museum	The beach, village life, indigenous ingredients

Zhiben is "Taitung's headline sight"; Jinlun is "Taitung's second acquaintance" — one is for tourists, the other for those beginning to understand Taitung.

Afterword

We've grown ever better at "good travel" — high-rated hotels, heavily recommended sights, the same Instagram check-in as everyone else.

But Jinlun reminds you: there's a kind of good that comes from "not being held hostage by the rankings."

A soaking room in every home, the smell of sulphur drifting through the lanes, the noodle-shop auntie by the station who remembers what you ordered yesterday — these everyday goods are the least wasteful gift Taitung has to give.

Next time you want a soak, don't rush off to Zhiben. Come stay a night in Jinlun.

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Further reading:

• The counterpoint, Zhiben: Doing Nothing Is Also a Way of Arriving (Zhiben Hot Spring)
• Pair it with Duoliang Station: The Platform Above the Sea (Duoliang Station)
• Pair it with the Taimali sunrise: Taiwan's First Light (Taimali Sunrise)
• South Link slow travel: South Link Slow Travel, 2 Days
• A 4-day, 3-night Taitung route that includes Jinlun: Taitung in Depth, 4 Days 3 Nights