Preparations
On tuesday the 29th. July we went to Suzhou. Suzhou is 45 minutes away from Shanghai with a population of 5,8 million. Suzhou is well known for it's canals and gardens by tourists. Foreign investment has found it's way too. It's a city with 2500 years of history. Suzhou, "Garden city and Venice of the east".
We prepared ourselves by studying the best way to travel. The day before our departure we bought train tickets from Shanghai to Suzhou. According to the Lonely Planet China guide (LP), the tickets can be bought at a counter in the soft seat waiting room at the Shanghai railway station. Reality is that one must have a ticket to enter this room. So we bought them in a building with a big blue sign just across the street from the waiting room.

The tickets costs 22 yuan each and are issued by a counter using a computer. The train seats are two by two. But the computer just issues them one after another without guarantee that you get adjacent seats. But usually passengers do not object to change places. We did it just by smiling and gesturing. Tickets have all the information you'll ever need. Beginning with the train no. Then the date and time of departure, then the wagon nr. and the seatnr. On the bottom there is a barcode as everything is computerized. You'll have to return the tickets on exiting the station of arrival.

Passengers who at that morning hour were mostly Chinese business people, will eventually understand english. Because of the foreign investments you'll also likely meet American, Japanes, Korean and European business persons too. Booking tickets a day before departure through a hotel or travel agency would cost you 20 yuan. Going yourself could cost you more on taxi fare and time.

We also booked our hotel through internet. The address is http://www.lodging.com/auto/intl_cities.cgi?remote=holidaypoint&country=cn
We booked with Suzhou's best hotel(according to Lonely Planet), the Sheraton usual fare is as of $180, through internet it's $100, no breakfast.

Starting the journey
With these two preparations we started the journey near our residence in Shanghai by waiting at the bus stop. There are two kinds of buses in Shanghai, airconditioned and not. The ACed has TFT screens and announces the next stop in english. The bus only accepts correct change in coins. As soon as the coins (1 yuan or 50 c. or 10 c) are dropped in a slit on top of the coin box box, the worth is flashed on an lcd screen on the boxside. You can enter and exit the bus from the front or the middle. The driver has a monitor watching the middle entrance. For 2 yuan (the non AC bus costs just 1 yuan) we rode to the nearest metro station and two yuan and four stops further we arrived at the Shanghai railway station. The metro stations are cavernous cool havens with airco and often very cheap (shoe, book) shops alongside the tunnels. The complexes can be huge, but are well lit, clean and safe with no graffiti at all. The beggars we only once met looked very professional. Persons dealing out folders and cards with discounted flights await you at the exits (They're quit harmless and do not sell anything).

The train
Arrivals and departures are announced by LCD screens hanging above the platforms in English and Chinese. You can buy a 50 or 100 yuan pass or single tickets at the counters or automated vending machines. Don't panic if you only see a Chinese metro map, nearby is always a bilingual one.
Above the counter is a map which tells you whether your destination is 2 or 3 yuans further. This one is only in Chinese. There is always someone in uniform around but usually doesn't speak English. Inside the Metro cars there is also a map on the ceiling and above the doors. The metrocars are even cleaner than the AC buses and as clean as the Singaporean. Inside the AC buses and metrocars are TFT screens with special commercials and a voice calling out the next station in chinese and english. It takes a good listening ear to hear the english announcement. The chinese names are quite difficult to remember anyway. Try remembering Xujiahui, Xintiandi or Huaihailu.

We entered the vast soft seat waiting room in the Shanghai railway station, fully airconditioned (the basic class waiting room is also airconditioned but with wooden seats). The coffee from the coffee stall was as good as what we were accustomed to in the Netherlands (15 yuan). On the walls electronic message boards kept us informed on coming and going trains in chinese and english.

Throughout the station electronic boards keep you informed on where to go to. Usually several platforms are joined by a transverse underground tunnel. Access from the tunnel to the platforms is by escalator and steps have a special ramp alongside for your luggage on wheels. Your train ticket tells exactly departure data, train ID and the number of your train wagon and your seat number. Difficulties could only arise when you experience a delay or so as most of the uniformed personell wouldn't understand english. But as everything is computerized a glance at a monitor tells you a lot.

Departure
We departed at 10.00 in the morning amidst a crescendo of mobile phones and business persons making appointments in the train for the first half hour. The fast train with speeds up to 160 km offered as smooth a ride as we were accustomed to in Europe. The rails are all welded together. The 80 Km were covered in 45 minutes. During the journey personnel sold hot and cold drinks. There seemed to be a hotwater source somewhere as tea was sold without. There are no graffitti and no conductors on board. Your tickets are scrutinized when entering the escalator leading to the platforms and again when entering the wagon.

Using the train for the first time we got an even better idea of how vast and stunning the development is in Shanghai, condo's and appartment buildings shooting up by the dozens, cranes and cranes everywhere. Once I saw a horizon full of piling machines. After a while the scene changed. Just like in Europe you barely saw people alongside the rails. Acres of farmlands and here and there villages but no people at all.

Arrival
When we almost reached Suzhou a sales lady sold a variety of tours. We felt confident enough we could arrange our own tour. We arrived in Suzhou after precisely 45 minutes. Outside the station the heat (it was 37¾C) fell upon us together with hordes of touts selling tours, pedicab rides and hotel rooms. We crossed the main street and found the main canal alongside the road, the boat station called "foreign travellers boat station" and a boat to take us on a canal cruise. We were the only tourist that day, we saw a lot on that canal which wasn't interesting at all. This was a disappointment, 200 yuans thrown in the murky canal water. But we got an idea of what Suzhou was. We saw a lot of riverbanks which were on the verge of being rebuilt and prettied up with gardens and floodlights and trees. So a cruise during the evening looked like a possibility in the future.

On the way back we asked to be put off near the the Shi Lu which was one of the (new) centers of Suzhou. Another cluster of big department stores can be found on the Renmin Lu which runs through Suzhou north to South. It's necessary to learn a few chinese words like I want to get off here.

Shi Lu was a street of department stores and towering shiny buildings and (life giving) airco's. We had some lunch at a noodle restaurant and after some gesturing they brought us the pictured menu. We saw the prices which were about 18 yuan per portion of noodles, we ordered and drank a coke. When it was served we were billed 22 yuan and thought it would be only for the drinks as we expected to pay 18 yuans per portion additionally. So after finishing we asked for the bill again and to our surprise the 22 yuan already covered everything. That was the cheapest lunch we had so far.

Then we caught a taxi and were driven to our Sheraton hotel. For once it wasn't a tower but an exquisitely built chinese style compound, 2-4 stories high built like an ancient Chinese fort. The rooms were just how a Starwood room should be (Westin, Sheraton and some 750 other best in the world hotels belong to this group). The telly had all the channels you could think of including HBO and piped right in the bathroom. The hotel had two swimmingpools, the outer had turned into a hotwater basin (imagine the heat) so we chose the indoor.

The gardens
Afterwards we strolled through the chinese style garden and explored the horizon where we saw a pagoda. After some inquiries it turned out to be the second century Ruiguang Ta with a beautiful laid out garden and immense pond. Like with some other gardens in Suzhou, someone had taken care of that newer buildings adjacent to these old sites would have the same style. The adjoining Sheraton thus blends in perfectly, it even has some (more expensive) rooms with a balcony over the Ruiguang Ta garden.

The Ruiguang Ta is definitely a must if you stay at the Sheraton. There is a golfcart which can drive you along the garden paths. It belonged to the scene of the last APEC forum and busloads of locals come but there is plenty of space. After some 15 minutes my tshirt was completely drenched as I just melted away in the heat. This was quite normal with everybody. But nobody took off his or her clothes, this was just not done.

On the first day after arrival around five pm we took a taxi to the nearby, "Master of the nets garden". Highly recommended by the lonely planet. When we arrived we read that closing time was 5 pm. Luckily the concierge was either enterprising or didn't mind the heat, any way she let us in with some more visitors, enytrance 15 yuan. I wouldn't want to visit this garden with a few busloads of tourist. It's rather small. Some parts of the buildings have been showed off at the MOMA (museum of modern arts) in New York. All the gardens we visited in China so far have been scrupulously clean. But this garden felt so manmade or maybe my taste is more for natural looking gardens. BTW the official site for all the Suzhou gardens is http://www.szgarden.sz.js.cn

Buffet
In the evening we had a buffet at the Sheraton, fusion western and eastern food, such a wide choice of salads and meats and noodles and dumplings, that I can't remember anything more than that there was also my favorite creme brulee and six choices of icecream, petit tarts and we had some cappucino afterwards which weren't up to par with the one we had at the shanghai railway station. But the seating with views of the garden was also memorable. And all for just 150 yuans per person

The "humble administrators" garden
I liked the largest Suzhou garden which we visited the next day and listens to the name of the Humble administrators garden much more. The name must have been a joke since it's the biggest in Suzhou, entrance 45 yuan. Bring along a digital camera with a big memory card. The pictures just present themselves, all you have to do is click. Well that's exaggerated, it isn't like that judging from the official website (the reality is far better). I guess I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

But there is an exquisite collection of goldfish in very nice chinese porcelain water pots in the garden and above them are several birdcages with a talking mina saying "Nihao". The buildings and furniture are well preserved and the garden is so large that you are not bothered by the other groups.

Thirstily we found an icecooled vendor with coke. I was prepared to pay 35 yuan as that is the usual price to pay at such places in Europe but was surprised as it turned out to be only 3.5 yuan. I think it's a must to learn at least to say: "how much does this cost" and know how to count in chinese. Even then we were apt to misunderstand.

I had some problems with our camera's which prompted me to write some tips. Because the temperature difference between our hotel room (20¾C) and the garden (39¾C) was more than 15 degrees, my Panasonic video camera blocked. A "Dew forming" warning appeared on the LCD finder and no more shooting.

Luckily I had Ria's Canon A70 which also blocked when put off. But it still was able to make pictures, the first ones were hazy, that's how it would be inside the camera (I guessed wrong, it was just the lens). This is the first time I had experienced all these troubles. The temperature difference took some hours to even out. Besides missing some beautiful pic's there's no harm done.

This humble garden has so many interesting viewpoints and imagine we came around noon. I actually expected just lingering in the shadows. Usually interesting pictures can only be made during the early morning or late afternoon hours. But because of the huge ancient trees and immense variety of plants you don't need to wait for the sun to fall in that desirable angle.

Back to Shanghai
On the way back to Shanghai we waited in the airconditioned railway station waiting room. Grace had a book by some chinese writer in dutch and a neighbouring civil servant inquired whether we were studying chinese. We rectified the matter and asked whether Suzhou also had a soft seat waiting room. The man brought us outside and to the west of the building. There was a separate entrance and there was our soft seat waiting room.
(This is not the first time we got spontaneous and "unrewarded" help. When we had trouble explaining something on buying medicine in a shop, someone helped us by translating.)

Luckily we had booked the tickets at our hotel because the train was full and had started in Nanjing a few hours before and ours were the only seats left in that particular wagon. We felt we had a good trip to Suzhou and enjoyed it. The way back from the railway station to home was just a reversal and a nobrainer.

Back to the top

Back to the main China 2003 page

Welcome to Shanghai (home)