Saturday 1 September 2007

Cycling in Suzhou

There was nothing to worry about, we were in the right place, but it's important to exercise those paranoia muscles - we do it as often as possible. We managed to beat the crowd to somewhere near the front of the taxi rank queue (big bags means big momentum and perceived big person) and did our best to help our lost taxi driver find our hostel. In the end we got out and walked and found it on the road that had been entirely dug up by a very enthusiastic digger. Our hostel was not as good as the last one, and the room was a bit damp too but we took it on the chin and decided we deserved that after such a good hostel before.

We had two days to see Suzhou, including this one so we wasted no time in heading out to explore. We settled into a Mongolian restaurant for dinner and had a particularly dissatisfying meal (the potatoes roasted in caramel being a highlight). We then attended an evening showcase of local performance, hoping the trend of the day would improve and it did. We were led around a traditional garden with little houses and pagodas surrounding a carp filled pond, where we saw about 8 different acts ranging from theatre to dance and traditional music. We had a nice evening and went to bed early so that we could have a very early rise and see people doing feng-shui meditations in the gardens the following morning. We were up at the crack of dawn and off on a couple of hired bikes. We went first to the biggest and most popular garden where we knew flocks of crowds would arrive soon enough, being led by megaphone wielding guides, trying to convey a sense of the serenity and peace that would exist if they all weren't there. We beat the crowds but we also beat the wardens because the garden was still shut so we went for a ride around town a bit, saw a big pagoda and then sat in a cafe and got stared at for half an hour while we nursed a glass of tea and then tried again. We were successful this time and got to enjoy the garden and feng-shui'ers who we suspected somehow bypassed the hefty entry fee. The place filled up soon enough though and it was a sight in itself to see such a tranquil place become consumed by so many noisy crowds trying to enjoy the very thing they were obstructing themselves from enjoying. I wondered if this might be a metaphor for the entire culture. We squeezed back out between cameras and people all posing with that familiar two fingered 'peace' sign and cycled to safety. After breakfast we had a nice time taking in the canals and back lanes that are the arteries of this town, we also cycled around the university campus a bit until the rain came and then fell asleep watching 'The Mummy' in Chinese on the tele.

Come evening, we took the bikes for one more spin in the hectic traffic and scared ourselves half to death before having a very good curry and saying goodnight to the town we would be leaving the following morning. Morning came and we left by bus but not before nearly killing the rickshaw cyclist who took us and our bags all the way uphill to the bus station. We felt so bad we paid twice what we had agreed on and gave him our water too before running into the station hoping that we hadn't missed the bus in our 30 minutes of guilt ridden lethargy.

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