Just Back From China

Shanghai is changing so much that markets clearly marked in travel books didn't exist as its being re built so fast . Pudong is well worth a visit to have afternoon teas on the 84th floor of the Grand Hyatt, a 1/4 of a mile in the air. This is where you really get to see the sprawl of Shanghai. To stroll down the Bund is to take a trip back in the past and see the colonial style buildings left as a British legacy. And no trip to China is complete without seeing an acrobatic troupe and the Shanghai troupe are one of the best in China. These are just a few suggestions , we stayed 6 days and were never bored . There was something to see and visit every day.

We were lucky that the weather stayed dry and was not too cold and we travelled to Souzhou 2 hours away by train. Trains in China are a great way of getting around and once you have negotiated the booking office, are very efficient. Souzhou is a designated World Heritage Area as they have a collection of gardens and pagodas which are of considerable age - some 300 years old and more which they are preserving all the time... Normally the best time to visit the gardens is spring but we found that the winter allowed us to see more clearly the design of the gardens and showed off the rocks and water aspects so important to the shape of Chinese gardens.
In fact it was Souzhou that was our downfall in the shopping as they sell silk quilts and silk embroideries and paintings.

What we failed to realise is that the shopping in China would slow us down so much as there is just so much you can buy. Forget about the designer handbags there is seriously good shopping in China - shoes and jeans and coats and jewellery leading the way. Everything you think you want to buy and then realise ooops how are we going to get this home. That’s when China post comes to the rescue . You take you packages to the post where for a small price they wrap them and you complete a custom declaration and post it back on the slow boat to China.

Once we got rid of the quilts and the silk embroideries and the tailor made shirts and suits etc we caught the overnight sleeper to Hong Kong . Readers of my previous travelogues will now begin to get the picture of my love affair with trains. This is one of the great trains in the world. You can do hard sleeper - if you are spartan or you can do soft either sharing with 2 others, or three if travelling by yourself or in a cabin for 2 people. The soft sleeper is 1500 Yuan for 2 sharing with others or 1800 for a cabin to yourself. There is hot water at the end of the carriage and you take on board your noodles for snacks during the trip and then eat in a dining car gently rocking through the meal so you can eat without spilling foods.
Attendants wheel trolleys down the corridor so you can buy treats and the dining car is not too expensive for breakfast,lunch and or dinner. This is where you can meet other European travellers to share adventures of China.

Then into Hong Kong and back home, now Hong Kong, there's another story...