Day 43: Xitang

Xitang was the second and last water town we visited during this trip. At this point, we have a confession to make - we sneaked into the town without paying the entrance ticket. Actually we were approached by a woman at the bus terminal asking if we needed a place to stay. The deal was that she would bring us into the town as her "relatives" as long as we stay at her place for one night (at the price of 100RMB equivalent to two entrance tickets). The flip side is that we wouldn't be able to visit the designated places that require the tickets. But since we weren't particularly thrilled about the designated places in Tongli, we agreed to the deal and was inside the town after 10 minutes.











Remember the scenes of Tom Cruise running and shouting Mandarin in "Mission Impossible III"? Those scenes were shot in Xitang, not Shanghai as the movie suggested. The town's people put up big posters of Tom Cruise at the places where the film was shot. Not surprisingly those spots were also where most tourists gathered for photos.

the "Tom Cruise" bridge & me imitating Tom running in "Mission Impossible III"









Xitang is smaller than Tongli, but draws a lot more tourists than Tongli. I guess Tom Cruise still has his charm on the Chinese population. After most tourists left on Sunday afternoon, the atmosphere was less frentic. There was no line-up at any restaurants or tea houses.

a calmer side of Xitang rarely seen by the public









We have not made any recommendation in our blog entries. This time we want to make two recommendations for future travelers. One is a restaurant called Lao Ping Fang, serving delicious local food at local prices. The other is a guesthouse called He Xiang Guesthouse (xitangly.com/hxkz.asp). The location is great – 30 meters from the main street and by the river. Get the room with river view and ensuite toilet/air con on the 2nd floor (80~150RMB depending on the day and your bargaining skill).


nightshots of Xitang

Day 41: Tongli

Tongli was the first water town we visited due to logistics reason. Finally we saw what we came for – canals and bridges throughout the town. We spent hours just walking around the town and eating sweets (sesame dumpling & green bean soup) by the canal. For dinner, we had the standard stir-fry items and rice by the Three Bridges. Since canals breed mosquitoes and we forgot to bring our mosquito repellent, we quickly finished our meal before the mosquitoes finished their meal, i.e. us.











We also witnessed a cat rescue mission. The villagers were trying to knock a cat off the tree, so they were running around and gathering bamboo sticks. But the harder they tried to hit the cat, the harder the cat held on to the tree. It was a fruitless effort, but definitely an animated act with the cat meowing and the villagers shouting. We went back after dinner, and the cat was gone. So somehow they managed to get the cat off the tree - longer stick or just cat food?












One embarrassing story. The last place we visited was Luoxingzhou, an island known for the temples. We were the only two passengers on the last ferry to the island. Having been on the trip for a while now, we could smell a scam from a mile away. But this time we let our guard down. One woman kindly invited us to a small temple to knock on a bell on the top floor. We politely refused. One man invited us to another small temple to burn some incense. Again we politely refused. Another woman invited us to the top floor of a small temple where we could view the entire island. We took the bait. After shooting some photos, the woman invited us to beat on a huge drum and offered to take photos of us. Since there is no free lunch (not even at a temple), we asked if we had to pay. “One RMB” she said. So there we were going crazy at the drum and the lady was cheering for us with chanting “one for good luck, two for ..., three for ..., four for ...” We stopped after three beatings, gave her a 5-RMB bill and asked for change. “What change?” she said and added “It was one RMB per beating per person”. So we were six RMB poorer when we left the island.















To enter the town, all tourists have to buy a combined ticket (RMB80) which includes 10 places to visit. Among the 10 places, two or three are worth the money. For those of you intend to visit Tongli but do not want to feel ripped off by the combined ticket, just show up after 5pm. The guards at the entrance won't be there.


snapshots of Gen Le Yuan









us savoring local sweet and watching local women doing their laundry by the canal

Day 39: Suzhou

Marco Polo once described Suzhou as "a city with six thousand bridges and full of cunning men of all crafts”. Well, we did not see six thousand bridges all right, but we did see the cunning men in action.

When we went to Shizilin garden to admire the stones, we bought some peaches just outside the garden. The woman vendor gave us back our change, and was nice enough to count it in front of us for correct change. Guess what? She counted nine 10-RMB bills, but gave us only seven back. We did not realize this trick until we were buying the entrance tickets for Shizilin. Promptly we went after the peach vendor and she gave us the rest of the money back without making a scene. Apparently the ticket lady at Shizilin said it was a common trick used by those fruit vendors outside Shizilin. There are two other incidents (one involving bicycle parking fee) which we will spare you the details.

Special stones at Shizilin












While Hangzhou was a pleasant surprise for us, Suzhou was an unpleasant surprise. Some of the canals were so dirty that the color was black. It was not nice to walk on the main streets due to the traffic. The small alleys offered temporary refuge, but cars and motorbikes still zoomed through them, i.e. honking behind you to pass.

To be fair, Suzhou does have its beautiful side, e.g. parks and museums. That is why many tourists still come here. For us, it was time to pack up and visit the water towns before heading to Shanghai.

us riding bicycles in Suzhou ... it was HOT









silk worms and cocoons from the Silk Museum

Day 37: Hangzhou

When we left Yangshuo, we were told by the travel agencies in Yanghsuo that it was impossible to get sleeper tickets to Hangzhou within three days of departure. Our backup plan was to stay in Guilin if we could not get the sleeper tickets for the same day. When we arrived at the train station in Guilin, we were able to secure two hard sleepers leaving at 5pm the same day, leaving us several hours to tour around Guilin. The timing was perfect.

This was our last sleeper train ride in China, so we were a bit sad when the train started pulling into Hangzhou. This ride was the longest (20.5 hours), but it was the most comfortable. The train had air conditioning and even laced beddings. We had our dinner in the restaurant cart. The food was not so good, but it was a special meal for us – a good conclusion to our train ride experience in China.













Hangzhou was a real surprise for us. We weren't expecting much since Hangzhou is a big, modern city. For a big city in China, it was actually very pleasant to walk around. There were no hawkers trying to sell you souvenirs around the West Lake. The public transit was simple and frequent. The restaurants were good. Among all the big cities in China, we like Hangzhou the most. We will be back to Hangzhou soon.

Katy happy about our sleeper train & the nice bedding












sunset on West Lake








someone playing RC boat around the Golden Water Buffalo

Day 35: Yangshuo

Long before we planned our itinerary for China, Katy and I had heard about the natural beauty of Yangshuo. It was an eye opener when our bus pulled into the town, which is surrounded by karst mountains, Li river, Yulong river and 1,000 other tourists. The tour and hotel touts here are more aggressive than other cities we had been to so far.


During our three-day stay in Yangshuo, we did the usual tourist things – cruising down the Li river, walking around the West street and cycling along Yulong river. The bike ride was not for the faint of heart. The seat (saddle) was rock hard. The road was mostly gravels and rocks. The sun was fierce. We were so glad when we finished our ride after three grueling hours. Our butts were sore for the next two days.









Yangshuo is also where we decided to change our itinerary to attend Hide's (my best friend from IMD) wedding in Tokyo in late October. Instead of spending two months in India, we will spend more time in Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan, and postpone our arrival in Europe. So Tokyo, we are coming!

resting our sore butts

Day 32: Longji - Da Zhai village

After a good rest at Zhaoxing, we continued our journey to Yangshuo. We stopped by Da Zhai, a Yao minority village to catch a glimpse of the grandest rice terraces in the world. This region is called Longji, literally meaning the "dragon's spine", due to the shape of the rice terraces.









At the bus station, we met a man who owned a guest house up in the mountain. He seemed like an OK guy, so we decided to check it out. God, it was a tiring 50-minute hike uphill, especially after our 7-hour bus rides from Zhaoxing. When we arrived, there were about 20 tourists already - not quiet at all. There were also five hawkers trying to sell us tacky souvenirs. If we were to do it again, we would just stay at a guest house at the bottom of the mountain. It would be just as noisy and touristy but without the 50-minute hike uphill.









Remember my last blog about Chinese tourists and gambling? There was this group of seven or eight people playing cards (with money, of course) when we arrived. They were still playing when we woke up the next morning. When we finished our hike and packed up to go down the mountain, they were still playing.

Day 27: Basha

Basha is a small Miao village nestled in the mountains about 20 minutes from Congjiang. The scenery is beautiful – wooden houses peaking through the mountain fog.



Tourism has definitely picked up here. Group of tourists came and left throughout the day. Only seven people, including us, stayed overnight in the village – all independent travelers. One interesting observation about the tour group is that gambling seems to be more interesting than visiting the village itself. They would spend an hour or two to visit the “highlights” of the village and spend the rest of the time huddling around a table to play cards or majong until dinner time. This is a broad generalization, but you get the idea.

We happened to catch a show put on for a tour group (apparently they paid RMB600 for the show). The show was interesting. There were about 50 villagers in their traditional costume dancing, singing and role playing, The best for me was the head shaving.













Misc. photos: