Hangzhou - a must see resort near Shanghai.

Generally all the business folks have a day to do sightseeing in shanghai and they see shanghai city or at the most go to Suzhou the silk city., Suzhou is a tourist town, and is worth visiting. I found out a place called Hangzhou which boasts a big lake called West Lake. Hangzhou is further south than Suzhou, about 120 miles from Shanghai. So most people do not visit when they have only 1 day to spare, but it is a place, you should go to, even if you have a day at hand.

We decided to go at a last minute and did not have enough time to plan, so we made all possible mistakes one could make in reaching Hangzhou. I hope this blog will helpful in avoiding those mistakes. In spite of the time it took us to reach, the trip was worth it.

Best way to go is to book a seat on a train from shanghai. If you want to save time in getting to the lake, make sure you go to the downtown station in Hangzhou, not the south or east station. The tickets are sold before the day of travel, so you can book them in advance. Take the fast train, that way you will spend only 2 hrs traveling, rather than 4 hrs like we did! When you go to the North station (in downtown) the lake is quite close. You can walk or take a cab. Hangzhou city is quite big, as you would expect, a small city in China, still has lot of people.

Once you land by the lake, you enter a different world. This lake is home to dragon boat racing in June. You see families, people rowing there boats and having fun. There is a line to get a boat to row. if you are not too keen on rowing yourself, there are boat rides you can take. One is a small boat ride, you can take your food in the boat and eat while watching the beautiful surroundings (at least ice cream or hot tea/coffee depending on the season). it is an half an hour ride.

Then there is a dinner cruise, the boat is royal Chinese boat. It is not too huge but it is very artistically made. The royal families vacationed here long time ago and these boats and the architecture around the lake, shows you a glimpse of how they lived.There are quite a few tea houses by the lake, but the chinese do not serve much food in their tea houses. People seem to drink just tea or beer with peanuts and cherry tomatoes! There are some open food makers who grill the meat and have popcorn though. I was thinking of Nachos or pizza to take on the boat ride, but alas, this is not US of A.

The lake is huge, there is a pagoda on one side and a temple on the other, you can walk to both these sites. The walkway is right by the river, It is very refreshing to walk by this willow treed path. People come and play music there, kids play, people chat, paint. . In spite of so many people around you, there is a certain calmness to this place. In Shanghai, you do not see any trees any more, here there are lush green mountains surrounding the lake and the contrast makes a bigger impact.

At least to me, It felt very relaxing to be by the lake, We had spent about 6-7 hrs getting their, but even then once we got there, it was worth it.

I hope you go and have as much fun as we did.