Day 15 - Suzhou, China

Day 15 – His 

We arrived in Suzhou at 11 after a quiet morning on the train spent mostly in waking up, reading a little and playing card games. We joined what has become the usual queue for taxis and arrived at the hotel half an hour later. All most of us could think of was showering. It’s strange how greasy and grimy one feels after long train journeys. After all you don’t do that much, just sit and stew in your own sweat watching the world go by. Even so, long journeys are guaranteed to create two things – a sense of feeling dirty and a feeling of being tired.

So we quickly got our rooms and went for showers before we set off to get the bikes we were supposed to have prearranged for a cycle tour of the city. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the cycle shop it was something like 3:45 and the shop wanted the bikes back by 5 – they were making a huge song and dance about the hiring process and clearly didn’t really want us to take the bikes. Tory, God bless her, was most certainly in our corner and the girls in the bike shop were kicking up a real fuss. We got together and in loud voices, after all who cares who overhears you when you realise mostly they haven’t got a clue what you are saying, and decided to hell with it – we would do without the bikes. I am sure Tory was relieved – she had been fretting about the bike ride since we got into Suzhou. I think she had been having nightmares about us all being ploughed down by the rogue buses of Suzhou and spending days sorting out the paper work shipping our dead bodies home would be sure to involve.

 I should have said lunch was a bowl of fried noodles and ‘meat’ (-God knows what kind of ‘meat’) but it was delicious when soaked in soy sauce. Anyway, we had lunch in the Chinese version of a greasy spoon cafe. It was some small place we just turned into for no particular reason other than it was there – I loved it and dinner was 50p – how’s that for value.

 I might have mentioned, once or twice, how crazy the traffic here is. Our earlier bike ride had been on the safe walls of the city where we were separated from the main traffic. Here we would be amidst it all and Tory was worried. Having said that – she was going right ahead and doing it for us until we decided it was not really going to happen and asked her to give up on it.

As an alternative she walked us to the Suzhou museum. It is a brand new building that is supposed to be a modern interpretation of a traditional Chinese garden. Personally i think the best thing about it is the air conditioning. Suzhou is baking hot. As we walked along i could feel my calves cooking – Patti gave me some sun tan lotion to help avoid burning them too badly. The modern museum was attached to a traditional (restored) Chinese house and garden complex which was truly magnificent and very reminiscent of Arabic housing – maybe it is the weather that dictates these things. The House was really a series of buildings arranged around several courtyards. I just loved the door hinges and i plan to use the same type of hinge if i ever build another summer house.

We have lost two of our group and now there are only four of us. Patti, me, a guy called Irfan from Pakistan and Michael from Ohio. I was telling them of my hinge obsession – but i don’t think they were too impressed. The museum is in one of the preserved parts of the city. I should explain a little more – Suzhou was one of the most beautiful cities in China – once. But it has been growing at the rate of one and a half million people a year for the last 4 years so a lot of it has been swallowed up by new development. All that is left of the so called ‘Venice-of-the-east’ are the largely unused canals and a few oases of the old city like where the museum (and, incidentally, our hotel) is. The bits that are left are superb – it is a shame that there are so few left – but this is the way of things – I am reminded a little of La Boca in Buenos Aires.

 After wandering around the museum, historic house and a few canals and cooking ourselves some more in the late afternoon sun we gratefully clambered onto an air conditioned public bus and made our way back to the hotel. Tory had bought herself some high fashion shoes in Xi’an and decided to wear them for our wanderings – unfortunately fashion is pain as they say and the shoes being fashionable and new were most inappropriate for the day she had planned. The poor girl was hobbling along at the end of the day – clearly in pain – i felt for her – poor thing. She arranged to meet us in the morning and disappeared to bathe her feet – we plan on going to see a light show on some bridges of the old city tonight.

Day 15 – Hers

I found the overnight train from Xi’an to Suzhou more comfortable than the previous overnight train.  This one had compartments open to the corridor which made it a bit less claustrophobic – and the loo was amazingly clean given the number of people using it.  The Chinese are quite obsessed with cleanliness. (This is a good thing.)  They all troop to the washrooms – separate from the loo – to wash before eating and to brush their teeth afterwards. The train also has onboard cleaners who empty the bins and sweep the corridors during the journey.

Like Rob, I enjoyed the lunch in the Chinese ‘greasy spoon’.  I had asked for vegetarian fried rice but Tory, bless her, got confused and ordered me the same as Rob.  When she realised her mistake, it was too late to change from noodles – but she managed to get mine to be vegetarian rather than mystery meat – for which I am truly grateful.  It was delicious, in any case, and not too much food for a change.

I enjoyed the museum and restored house this afternoon – the gardens brought out my hidden ‘David Bailey’ - but the amazing lights and views along the canals in the historic district this evening made it much easier to understand the Chinese famous saying: 上有天堂，下有苏杭. ‘In the sky is Heaven’s paradise, on Earth is Suzhou.’ The winding Qing and Ming Dynasty canal-side streets, lit by lanterns and coloured lights, with high-quality shops and market stalls and live traditional music were breathtaking.  Tourist boats navigated the canals and parped at each other before negotiating the decorative bridges, turning around in a willow-lined pool.  We strolled for an hour, taking photograph after photograph – as did thousands of (mainly Chinese) tourists.  Without the Christmas tree lights and glass fronts at street level, it would have been easy to imagine one was walking through a Ming Dynasty village – even the smells were of the period (We know this thanks to the realism of the Jorvik Viking museum in York.) – a very human, hot, earthy smell – mixed with incense and cooking spices.  On the short walk back to our hotel, we also passed a very busy park: wide, lit pathways with couples dancing, groups practising a version of tai chi using fans, others just sitting and chatting and a huge variety of street foods – clearly how the locals spend their Thursday nights!

 Irfan and Michael wanted to continue to explore – so they dropped us back at the hotel and continued walking in a different direction.  We old fogeys wanted some cool air conditioning and a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s adventures.