On the train to Suzhou I met Stuart, the first Westerner I’ve encountered in China to speak fluent Chinese. It turned out that he now works in Shanghai and commutes from Suzhou, so was able to get us a taxi into the city even though it was peak time on a Friday night. He then bartered down our hotel price by a significant amount. It was very impressive, and has given me motivation to work harder at my Mandarin!
Suzhou is known as ‘the Venice of the East’, and once we escaped from the horrendously busy city streets it was a charming place. Once a moated city, it is built around a network of canals that feed the gardens for which it is most famous. Just behind the rows of shops and restaurants would be paths alongside the canals, like this one.
On Saturday, we walked around the city, avoiding the buses full of package tours. Here’s one of the quieter spots in Suzhou; no tourists and nobody trying to sell you anything.
There were lots of beautiful old bridges over the canals.
We visited a couple of the gardens. Here I am in Wangshi Yuan.
And here’s Dad.
Chinese gardens are very different to English gardens – the emphasis is not on natural beauty but artistic beauty. Every tree, rock and pool is carefully sculpted for ‘balance, harmony, proportion and variety’ (thanks, Rough Guide). It was apt, then, that there were many students from art colleges sitting around painting or drawing the scenery.
After getting lost exiting our second garden, Ou Yuan, we stumbled across a big, beautiful park. We then took a taxi down to the Grand Canal to investigate boats to Hangzhou, but sadly they no longer run. Nonetheless, we saw some of the world’s longest canal, a feat of engineering on a par with the Great Wall. Well done China.
In the late afternoon we took a bus to Hangzhou instead. The roads ran along the same route as the Canal so a lot of the scenery was very pretty.
On Sunday we explored Xi Hu (West Lake), the huge lake which makes Hangzhou such a popular tourist attraction. It has a rough area of 3 squared kilometres and there are lots of little islands in the middle. We took a boat out on the lake to the largest island, Santanyinyue (Three Flags Reflecting the Moon). It was quite misty in the morning but the sun was trying to break through, making the views pleasantly mysterious.
Here we are on the island.
We then visited the northern shore of Xi Hu and strolled around one of the many parks surrounding the lake.
It was very peaceful.
There were 2 causeways stretching across the lake, one down the west side and one across the north side, and lots of cycling tourists.
As we walked back to our hotel in the afternoon we noticed a large crowd had gathered around a tree, pointing and taking photos. Intrigued, we investigated. What could attract such excitement?
It was a squirrel.
We sat around admiring the views for a while longer and then decided to get a taxi to the station which we thought was relatively nearby. We were so relaxed from our day at the lake that we approached this task in a very relaxed way. Big mistake. No taxis would drive us to the station as it was a very busy time and, as we later found out, the station we wanted was very far away. Eventually one man in a small van agreed. He then took us to the wrong station. He then got lost on his way to the right station. We missed our train back to Pingxiang by minutes.
As I knew there were no more fast trains that day, I was more than a little upset. But we managed to exchange our tickets for the next train, a sleeper train that would take over 10 hours. It was comfortable enough and we were sharing our 2-bunk compartment with a nice, quiet, non-smoking girl, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Father deserved better. He didn’t mind though.
We got back to the college around 5am, shattered, but with classes to teach at 8am, so we decided to skip sleep for the night.
I felt the trip was worth the exhaustion though. 5 provinces in 5 days is no mean feat but I’m so pleased we managed to see so much. China has a huge amount to offer and travelling has made me eager for more. If only the small matter of teaching didn’t keep getting in the way.
