Doing nothing is also a way of arriving

In Taiwan, some hot springs you reach by learning to rappel down a cliff. Others are the exact opposite — you don't have to do anything at all. You only have to hand yourself over.

The second kind is called Chihpen Hot Spring. It sits in the Chihpen valley, about 30 minutes south of Taitung City, ringed by forest and mountains. Since the Japanese-colonial era it has been Taitung's most famous hot-spring town. The older generation gave it a very large name: "the First Wonder of the East."

The First Wonder of the East

The water comes up from deep inside the Central Mountains.

Per Taitung Tourism, Chihpen is an alkaline carbonate spring — colourless, odourless, clear — with water near boiling at source, rich in minerals. Skin feels silky after a soak, and that is how people came to call it "beauty waters."

It isn't the sulphur-heavy water of northern Taiwan. It isn't a wild-river hot spring that asks you to scramble. Chihpen has been tended for almost a century — its valley lined with hot-spring inns, from Japanese-era wooden ryokans to today's resort hot-spring hotels. A hundred years of bathing has shaped this place.

Doing nothing

Our generation is very good at "planning." Even on holiday we fill the day with sights, step counts, photos.

Chihpen comes to remind us: there is a kind of arriving that is doing nothing at all.

Drop your bag in the room, change into a yukata, walk into the steaming water. The heat takes your shoulders apart, the valley wind drifts through the window smelling of forest. For the first time in a long while, you are not waiting for the next thing.

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The best hot spring takes away not your tiredness, but the things you thought you absolutely had to do.

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That is why Chihpen is so right for two. No rush, no crowd, no flag to follow — one pool, one good meal, one morning you wake to on your own time. That, the whole trip.

A pot of red oolong in the afternoon

After the bath, locals reach for a pot of tea. Not far north of Chihpen is Luye — the home of red oolong.

Luye red oolong: half-fermented, amber in the cup, fruit and honey on the nose, with a clean returning sweetness. It pairs naturally with the older Luye specialty, fulu tea. Many Chihpen hot-spring hotels pour red oolong with their afternoon tea — the looseness of the bath and the warmth of the tea, an afternoon mature travellers learn to love.

No rush. A pot of red oolong is enough for an entire afternoon, watching the mist come down off the ridge and back up again.

The forest, right next door

Chihpen isn't only the water.

At the end of the valley is the Chihpen National Forest Recreation Area — a stretch of low-elevation old-growth forest, with century-old banyan aerial roots hanging like curtains, a network of easy trails, the famous "forest bathing." Chihpen at dawn is the best version of itself: mist rises off the river, hangs in the branches, and the whole valley wakes slowly.

Many travellers come to Chihpen only for the bath. They miss the walk before it. A short forest walk before the soak — that's the step that actually opens you up.

Planning Chihpen

• Where: about 30 minutes south of Taitung City. Divided into an "outer" and "inner" hot-spring district; most hotels sit in the inner district.
• Water: alkaline carbonate, colourless and odourless, locally "beauty waters" (per Taitung Tourism)
• How to bathe: public nude baths, private hot-spring rooms, or stay at a hot-spring hotel with an in-room bath — whatever suits you
• Best season: autumn and winter are most comfortable; the annual Chihpen Hot Spring Season runs in early winter. In summer, soak at sunrise or sunset.
• What to pair: Chihpen forest in the morning → bath and red-oolong tea in the afternoon → next day, drift down the South-Link to Duoliang and Taimali.
• A note for two: Chihpen rewards travellers who don't rush. Hand the car to a chauffeur-guide; leave the schedule loose. That's how Chihpen wants to be done.

A note at the end

Lisong asks you to rappel 400 metres down a gorge for 30 minutes of silence. Chihpen is the exact opposite — it has already prepared everything; it asks one thing of you: let go.

We are forgetting how to rest. We think rest is a different place where we still answer messages and still plan.

But Chihpen's water teaches you the other version: real rest is allowing yourself to do nothing. Soak in a pool that's been here almost a hundred years; let the valley mist, the forest air and a pot of red oolong soften you slowly.

That's the moment you remember what relaxing actually feels like.