Wuxi & Hangzhou

So the next town we drove to that afternoon was Wuxi (oooo she) which is one of the oldest cities in China with more than 3000 years of history. It is about 128 kms from Shanghai and a little bigger than Suzhou at 6 million people. The name means 'no tin".

The hotel was the best so far, large rooms with a separate lounge area but not in a great part of town. We managed to find a Carrefour which kept us amused and sold wonderful custard tarts. After our 3 hours free time we where taken to the old part of town called Nanchang St where old meets new. It was a pedestrian street with red lanterns hanging in the trees, old buildings with a modern fit out of restaurants, bars, cafes and shops that ran alongside a canal. It was a warm, balmy evening and just great to take a stroll down, check out the shops then we stopped at a German restaurant, had dinner outside and watched the world go by, such a great experience.

On Thursday we were off to the fresh water pearl farm. The pearls are farmed on the lake that Wuxi is built around, lake Tai, as it has ideal conditions for oyster farming. The lake is really large, around the size of Hong Kong but only 2 metres deep so the sunlight can go to the bottom and happy little oysters can do their thing with the pearls. It was of course another exercise in the extraction of money from tourist wallets and it seem to work quite well. We had a 15 min talk on why their pearls were the best and the different products they made from them besides jewellery such as face creams, pills and the elixir of life from crushed pearls. Then there was the showroom. With some beautiful jewellery and looking very classy and up market. Go into the toilets and the only sit down one was used as a broom closet and out the front reception foyer behind the desk was thick with dust, cigarettes all over the floor and a tangle of old and broken office equipment on the desk behind the counter. A total contrast to the lovely showroom.

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Lake Tai

After a short stroll around the park on the lake which looked fairly uninspiring we were back on the bus heading for Hangzhou (hung joe) described by Marco Polo as the most beautiful and magnificent city in the world. I'm not sure when the last time Marco was there but I think it may have changed since his time even tho I would agree it was a lovely city.

It's only slightly larger than Wuxi, at 8 million people but felt a lot bigger with big spaghetti junctions on the motorway and a huge river to cross. An unusual phenomenon occurs in the is city once a year on mid autumn day. A huge tidal wave, sometimes as high as 20 metres, comes roaring down the river. People often come to see the tidal wave but one year it was larger than expected and wiped out the banks and from what I understand, a few people with it.

We first went to West lake and it was so much prettier than lake Tai. There were large mature trees lining the boulevards, willow trees dripping into the lake and little islands dotted around. The lake was surrounded on three sides with hills and mountains and on the 4th side was the city. A lovely long wooden boat took us for a ride around the lake and at one point the guide asked us to take out a one yuan note. The scenery was exactly how it was on the note, lake, mountains and 5 stupors in the water. It really was extremely picturesque and tranquil. We also had time for a walk around some of the lake and it's lovely gardens before heading off to dinner for another boiled cabbage & soup delight.

Scene on the one Yuan note

Our Hotel

The next morning, by this time it was Friday, we headed for the hills to where they grew tea. It was also picturesque with the manicured tea bushes marching up and over the hills and nice little farmers houses instead of the multilevel high rises with knickers hanging out the balconies blowing in the breeze.  The mission this time was to visit the Dragon Well Tea Plantation which absolutely delighted both Jon and Roger to bits. So here we had a tour of who and how the tea leaves were picked, dried and packaged then about an hour lecture on the benefits of their particular tea, the antioxidant properties and something called polyphenols, a super food that can alleviate  almost any disease known to man. Out came the wallets again with people buying freely and happy to part with hundreds if not thousands of dollars to cure the ills of the world.

The art of pouring tea

With the bus loaded with green tea and lots of polyphenols, we headed back to Shanghai, a drive of around 3 or so hours. As a change for lunch from boiled cabbage and watery soup, they gave us sandwiches, crisps, bananas and a couple of snickers bars which went down very well on the whole bus, in fact both bus loads got it so we were all happy campers.