Suzhou

Having reached the end of my brief train journey from Nanjing I was pleased to find Suzhou was one of few stations so far to have managed to organise a taxi rank. So, after negotiating a town map off a hawker and avoiding the swarm of beggars, I easily found a taxi to take me to the Mingtown Youth Hostel. Normally if a taxi dropped me off a kilometre short of my destination I wouldn’t be overly happy, but it turns out my hostel is down a pedestrianised lane which is also one of the oldest and most pleasant in the town. So I didn’t mind the walk to the hostel as I could enjoy the canal running alongside me and the historic descriptions of each of the humpback bridges as I passed. Once again I had arrived fairly late in my new town so just spent the evening exploring the local small streets in what has been described as the “Venice of the East” due to its canal population.

Pingjiang Road and the canal which ran alongside the hostel

The following day I planned to hire a bike to take me around town but I needed to give the hostel a deposit larger than id paid for anything so far in China, so spent a good hour searching for a cash point which would actually give me money. It seems not all Chinese banks like me and I’m starting to build a knowledge of which ones it’s just not worth trying. While I was heading south from the hostel I thought id stop by at the Twin Pagodas but initially failed to find them. It seems a plan of going down any street that seems interesting will often pay off, as just like in Xian when I found the Great Mosque, a busy looking alleyway also led me straight to the Twin Pagodas in Suzhou. However they didn’t prove to be such as good find as the mosque. To start with the man in the ticket booth was asleep and then when I entered it looked like I had just walked into someone’s back garden that just happened to have two pagodas in it. I left feeling id not got value for my 50p and that I should have just let the man sleep.

In Xian I had hired a pretty basic bike to cycle round the city walls but this wasn’t an issue as I wouldn’t be coming up against traffic or many other people. However in Suzhou, complete with manic drivers, impatient scooters and no law it seems regarding which lane anyone used, my bike was simply tragic. The wheels were tiny, it genuinely had no brakes and lacked in the most important feature in China – a bell. Luxuries such as gears were well out of the question although I did manage to convince the hostel that a bike lock may be a good idea. Despite all these flaws, the bike turned out to be the most fun and convenient method of transport I’ve had in any country and definitely won’t be the last time I hire one.

Suzhou was used as a town for the rich in centuries past as a place to build houses outside the cities with luxurious gardens around the canals. Now equipped with my wheels I headed off to visit some of the gardens which made the town famous – The Couple’s Garden, Lion’s Grove Garden and the Humble Administrator’s Garden. In addition to these I thought I’d try a garden which wasn’t listed in Lonely Planet in the attempt to find one off the beaten track. I’ll probably stick to the guide book in future as East Park turned out to be a children’s park filled with climbing frames and kids parties, and me walking around just looked a bit weird. I tried to get out via a different exit but ended up getting told off by a guard for trying to sneak into the backdoor of Suzhou Zoo.

One of many pools in the Humble Administrator's Garden

The gardens on the whole were very nice and with the exception of the Humble Administrators Garden (one of the towns top attractions) they were fairly crowd free. The design of the gardens all used huge rocks brought down from the mountains which were meant to look like various things, in particular the rock formations in the Lion’s Grove Garden were, unsurprisingly, meant to look like lions, the protectors of Buddhism. I could have sat in front of those rocks for days and still not seen a lion in any them.

Three gardens were enough for me so instead I tried to liven the day up with a museum trip. It didn’t work. The admission to the Suzhou museum was free and it was next to my latest garden, but unfortunately the exhibits were slightly lost on me as the bulk of them were only explained in Chinese.

Im starting to think this blog may be coming over a bit negative, which is odd seeing as Suzhou was actually my favourite destination so far despite the fact that I haven’t really described anything that optimistically. It was more the pleasant surroundings, friendly people and my terrible-yet-amazing bike that made the town so enjoyable. The attractions were, compared to other cities, quite average. But if you fancy one last fairly standard attraction then read on.

Following the museum I cycled to the North Pagoda seeing as I felt I hadn’t hike up enough stairs that day, where I was please to find nine-stories of ridiculously high ones. Having reached the top though I did get an excellent view of Suzhou but unfortunately did get to see what happens to a town when it becomes the world’s leading manufacturer of laptops – smog. 

Suzhou featuring authentic Chinese smog

Before entering the pagoda I had been tempted by a lady selling some amazing looking vegetable pancakes. They were thin pancakes, which an unidentified battered object placed in the middle with various vegetables and an egg cracked on top, which was all wrapped up together. The other ingredient being a dangerous looking red spice she offered me. Following my failing with a similar situation in Chengdu I was very clear in saying id have a little bit, only to watch her lather it on in multiple layers. The final product looked bloody good but I only risked a small mouthful at first. I was pleased to find that despite the taste of searing flesh I could still make out the pancake, which turned out to be one of the nicest things I’ve eaten so far.

Having been too late to visit the “must see” Suzhou silk museum I returned to the hostel to find a local restaurant to eat in. Although I was sitting on my own I spent most the meal talking to a friendly Chinese man on the table next to me who was fascinated my travels. The only person more amazed than him was his 8 year old daughter who was doing her best to take subtle photos of me while I wasn’t looking. It would have been easier for her if the flash didn’t go off every time. In the end the dad just asked if the two of them could have a proper photo with me, which I enjoyed up until the point where the dad showed me the photo and said “look, you are very cute!” It was all going so well.

Having woken up slowly the next day, I got lucky in finding James was online in India so had a quick chat accompanied by a club sandwich (I know, not very local eating) before heading off to the train station. So far in China I have resisted whenever possible getting a taxi as they seem to resist me whenever possible as well. However, I was experiencing my first rain so just wanted to get to the station as fast as possible and eventually I flagged one down. It’s never a good thing when a taxi driver resorts to using a map to find the town’s main train station, but when his glasses brake in the process it’s quite hard remain entirely calm. However, this was actually a very entertaining journey as even though neither of us understood anything the other was saying, we still talked for the majority of the trip. He was very pleased when he spotted all my previous train tickets and even more so when he established I was English.

Trains to Shanghai, just an hour away, were very regular but it still didn’t stop any of them being rammed full of locals. Each carriage in China gets its own guard and I could enjoy the presence of a particularly loud and angry one. The highlight being when he kicked off at a woman at one end of the carriage resulting in every other member of the carriage standing up to watch. The show lasted a good 20 minutes and was easily worth the £1.50 ticket. Popcorn would have been nice though.