C & C globetrotting around the world…

There’s a Chinese saying that “In the Sky there’s Paradise, on Earth there’s Hangzhou and Suzhou”. Hangzhou has been praised by emperors and revered by poets for centuries. Hangzhou is indeed very nice, so we spent a relaxing week here planning and researching the next part of our trip. Since we don’t have a hard-coded plan, we are very flexible at making our plans as we go, which is very cool. However, it comes at the price of spending a considerable amount of time researching and deciding where to go next.

Upon arrival in Hangzhou, we noticed taxis don’t take foreigners. We don’t know why, but we weren’t able to get a cab during the week we stayed there. Luckily the city has a free bike service (like Bixi) and we got around town perfectly. Biking is the best way to see Hangzhou anyway. Our hostel was in a nice neighbourhood and near the historical pedestrian street of Qinghefang, that we explored in its smallest details.

We spent nice relaxing days in Hangzhou, partly also because it rained quite a bit, so we had to stay in and write on the blog, nap watch movies and talk to other travelers. When it didn’t rain, we explored the beautiful area with its lake and green hills. West Lake with its willow-lined banks is in the middle of the city and around it are all the attractions. It’s a man-made lake with islands and causeways, as well as nice parks lining it, being the very definition of classical Chinese beauty. Hangzhou doesn’t only have pretty nature, but the places have all been given very poetic names. We walked on the East Side of West Lake through “Orioles Singing in the Willows” park. After dinner we watched the Musical Fountain show, which was the nicest we’ve ever seen. This also made up for the less spectacular view of West Lake which was kind of hazy. But then again, the Chinese like misty views and consider them (especially around mountains and lakes) to be more beautiful than a clear view.

One day when we went grocery shopping, we were standing in line at the cashier when a father puts his one-year-old son in the empty cart. Moments later we saw pee on the ground. Nobody seemed to care, like it was the most natural thing in the world (the boy had open pants, so he didn’t get wet), except us who changed lanes since we didn’t want to walk around in his pee. Weird foreigners!

We realized that so far, the best (and cheapest) food we had was in Beijing. The food is good in China, but every now and then you feel like something else than Chinese food. People had told us it was going to be like this, but I didn’t think it would really happen. Now after over 3 weeks, we do look forward to change. In Hangzhou we went to a Brazilian Churrascaria, which wasn’t as good as in Brazil (duh!), but still a nice change. What is also good, is that in most cities there are Chinese Muslims (Hui) that have restaurants and offer a variety of dishes.

We used the city bikes quite a lot, and although they are not in good shape, they are for free and get you from A to B (sort of like our car). We biked past the Leifeng Pagoda and onto the Su Causeway all the way to the end. The Su Causeway, built in the 11^th century from silt from West Lake, is beautifully lined with willows, peach and plum trees and has many pretty half-moon bridges, making the bike-ride in this car-free zone a true delight. We also went up the hill to Lingyin Temple (Temple of the Soul’s Retreat), where we visited the grottoes with their Buddhist carvings from the 10^th and 14^th centuries (470 in total). The area was very nice and we walked along the creek with its lingering carvings along the hillsides (Christoph’s favourite was the “Big-Belly Buddha”), visited a monastery and up to Feilai Peak (Peak Flying from Afar) to get a glimpse of West Lake. Up on the hills in temples we saw many large Buddhas, gilded and with people lighting incense sticks for them.

Due to more rain, we visited the Silk Museum, which was very interesting and for free. Then we walked back through a linear park along a little river that serves as a natural sewage filtration system before the water reaches the West Lake, which was very very nice.

Finally a day without rain! Youhou! We took the bus and got off at the Dragon Well Tea Village at the top of the hill. We went to the village well and there an older man let us wash our hands and faces with water from the Dragon Well, which is said to give eternal youth. He then invited us to his place for some tea tasting. We tried 2 different kinds of tea and he wanted to sell us some. There was one kind for $100/500g, one for $140/500g and the most expensive $200/500g. Since he didn’t give us a student discount, we didn’t buy any and just continued our journey. We walked downhill where we saw some tea plantations of the famous Longjing tea. People wanted us to go for more tea sampling inviting us to their homes, but we resisted. The landscape was very nice with all the lush green around. We continued walking downhill, but by the time we got to the Tea Museum, it was closing. From there we hopped on the bikes again past the Lotus Garden to Yue Lake (part of the West Lake) where we saw the cute little bridge with the double-roofed pavilion on top. We left the bikes there and walked on the Bai Causeway to the other side by passing the famous Wailouwai restaurant. Again there wasn’t any student discount, but the building and location was beautiful.

On the 6^th day in Hangzhou, we packed our stuff and decided to check the exact time of our train that afternoon so we know how to plan our day. Big surprise: our train was YESTERDAY! We couldn’t believe it! The girl from the train station had sold us a ticket with the wrong date and we hadn’t double-checked. Another lesson learned. So instead of going to the Tea Museum as planned, we went to the train station with one of the guys working at the hostel who helped us get our ticket reimbursed. Luckily we were also able to get a ticket to Suzhou for that same day (usually tickets are sold out days in advance).

The train we took was a G-train and was the fastest we took so far, reaching a speed of 352km/h. Pretty cool! It was also interesting to see the Yangtze River and lots of lakes and water around. We also saw what seemed to be large fish or seafood farms in the water. Arrived in Suzhou, it was already dark, but we still went for a walk around since we at least wanted to see a bit of the city and take some pictures. Suzhou is known for its nice Chinese gardens and it used to be a nice water town, but now most of the nice canals and streets have been demolished. However, there are still the gardens left that are said to be very nice. Unfortunately they were already closed, so we walked along some canals and got to a touristic area where it was all lit-up. It was nice and Christoph took nice pictures before we sat down for a beer.