An Adventure just outside Hangzhou - Day 3

by John Mckenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Hi All

Here is the 3nd and last day of this trip into the mountaions outside of Hangzhou.

I do hope you have enjoyed the trip,

If i can arrange a tour or a trip within China for you, please contact me anytime on john@travel-the-real-china.com

The full story and the pictures can be seen on Travel-Hangzhou-China

Day 3, Nov. 6th

Up bright and early again. Last night we came in after dark, so didn’t get a good look at Lin’an.

The Hotel’s name was Hai Ding Tian; the group rate we paid was RMB 140; the actual room rate was RMB320, so we did OK. Breakfast was a very expensive RMB 5 for a classic Chinese breakfast!…YUM YUM. Hehehe

We went for a small walk through town before breakfast and noticed that the town was very industrial; many small shops all with building supplies etc; many new buildings going up, and many, many small Chinese hotels. This town is the main feeder town for the mountain tourist area, as it’s much cheaper to stay here than in Hangzhou.

At 8-30 we were off in 3 large buses winding their way through very small towns and villages to Xiao Jiuzhaigou. The scenery is beautiful. We came across a hydroelectric dam, and the lake it has created is spectacular; we never expected this.

Our trip took about 50 minutes in our private bus. However you can get a public bus from the Lin’an, Hangzhou bus station up to here as well.

Well, what a shock. On the way we found we were in a 3-bus convoy (thought we had left early) and arrived to find another 10 buses already ahead of us. It was time to experience the throngs of Chinese tourism.

Another shock - all the signs etc were bi-lingual and the entrance fee was RMB 48. We were invited in as guests of the tour operator from Suzhou – very nice.

Later, in discussions with the operators of Xiao Jiuzhaigou I learned that this place also sees no western tourists; it’s just too hard to get to.

It had just started to rain a little and the temperature had dropped - very different from yesterday’s beautiful sunny day.

Xiao Jiuzhaigou is in a small valley with waterfalls, ponds, lovely little bridges, some monkeys on show; a cool climbing wall that everyone can have a go on, with the safety procedures looking OK as well.

It’s a lovely place to walk through breathing some welcome fresh air, be close to running water, sit and have tea at the temple at the top of the valley, and sample the local food on sale.

We went there with a lot of people, and in the summer it will get very crowded. But in the winter it would be quite beautiful, as there would be snow and ice all around.

It’s not a long walk up the valley and you only need a couple of hours there, then you either sit down and enjoy the atmosphere, or feel its time to move on.

We said our gracious thanks to the Suzhou operator for looking after us so well and said I will contact him concerning trips etc for Suzhou and the surrounding area; I now have a good contact in Suzhou.

Fortune rained down on us once again. We meet a tour operator from Shanghai and he asked us if we needed a ride back to Lin’an…. Yes please.

After a local lunch for us both in Lin’an (RMB11) it was off to find the bus back to Hangzhou.

Buses leave from the Lin’an bus station to Hangzhou about every 15 minutes and the ride takes about 35–40 minutes, costing RMB 10.

We had already bought our 6-30pm train tickets back to Shanghai from the main Hangzhou railway station, a big modern station with thousands of people everywhere.

We were now 3 hrs early for our train, so we dropped off our bags at the station luggage office (RMB 5 per bag) and headed into town, as I needed some coffee. (I must be getting too old for this wild exploring. Hehe)

To get into town from the main railway station, there are many buses so we jumped on a K900 to the lake.

Hangzhou is well set up; it was easy compared to the last few days of finding buses etc.

We found a new coffee shop down by the lake, Blenz Coffee shop, a nice clean, modern coffee shop overlooking the lake and ordered coffee and cake…wonderful…I must be getting old.

There is a great, cheap famous local place to eat in Hangzhou called Zhi Wei Guan where the main restaurant is upstairs and it’s a ticket system for downstairs, with all dishes about RMB 5. We had a quick dinner and headed back to the station on a 151 bus, which took 15 minutes.

We had brought soft-seat tickets, so we headed for the soft-seat waiting area; big nice soft seats to crash into, to wait for our train to arrive.

Then we took the N510 back to Shanghai; unfortunately it was a slow train and took 3hrs - oops, bad planning there.

Finally arrived back in Shanghai, and crashed.

A great weekend, exploring new sites to share with you all.

If you would like more information on Travel Hangzhou China, and the surrounding area please contact me anytime john@travel-the-real-china.com

Happy travelling

John

www.Travel-the-Real-China.com