When you are going to Shanghai, be sure to go to Hangzhou

Hangzhou - a must see resort near Shanghai.

Generally all the business folks have a day to do sightseeing in shanghai and they go to Suzhou the silk city as an outing, if they have already seen the 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 are on a business trip. But it is a place, you should go to, even if you have only a day at hand.

We decided to go at a last minute and did not have enough time to plan, we made all possible mistakes in getting there and still it was worth it. so I want to write this so people will get more time to see the place than to travel there.

You can find a train to go to Hangzhou 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 station. The tickets are sold before the day of travel, so you want to book them in advance. Take the fast train, so you need to 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 on the lake, you enter a different world. This lake is home to dragon boat racing in June. so you see families, people rowing there boats and having fun. There is a line to get a boat to row. So 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 and all you need to do is enjoy!

Then there is a dinner cruise, but the boat is royal Chinese boat. It is not too huge and 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.

The lake is huge, there is a pagoda on once side and a temple on the other, you can walk to both these sites. The walk is 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. It felt very relaxing to be by the lake, We had spent about 6-7 hrs getting their by slow train and bus, but even then once we got there, it was worth it.

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

Thank you for reading my blog.

my other travel blogs are 

New Mexico - The land of Enchantment

3000+ mile road trip in winter: Portland OR to Tucson, AZ and small towns in between.

Trip to Ketchikan, Alaska

Lake Titicaca

Grand Canyon - Traveling 2 billion years in 2 days!

Lake Titicaca

A lot if travelers go to Peru.  Machu pichu is the biggest draw and for a valid reason too. but then after you enjoy Machu Pichu and hike around, tourists generally can visit at least 1 or two other places in Peru and I think they should.    It is  such a diverse country that you have to see all the corners for appreciating the country and its diversity. Lake Titicaca is a hidden secret, not so close to all the other attractions and does not get on the tourist's list that easily. but in my opinion, the experience on the lake is a must.

This lake is on the border of Peru and Bolivia. Peru has  Titi means Puma  and Bolivia has the caca means Rock. Of course this translation was from a Peruvian and so they took the better part of the name, but that aside,  this lake in the Andes is huge.  It is considered the highest navigable lake in the world at 12000 ft.

We went there from Cuzco in November of 2012. We joined a tour bus from Cusco to Puno, It was a 8 hr bus tour but with stops every 2 hours and at every stop there was something worthwhile to see. We also went to the highest mountain top in Peru at 15000 ft, on the way.

Puno is a small town, when we reached Puno, it was the town's establishment day, so people were dancing in the streets. It was nice to see old and young couples wearing their traditional dresses and dancing to upbeat songs in a parade. School bands marching. No wonder, there was so much dancing in this town, it is the "Capital folklórica del Perú" (folkloric capital of Peru) due to its wealth of artistic and cultural expressions, particularly dance, I found this out from the Wikipedia page later.

Next morning, our tour guide brought a mini bus to collect his tour group from different hotels and took us to the boating dock. Our boat was a mid size boat and we had a captain and a navigator in the boat.  The weather in November morning was mild, but we carried sweaters and I am glad because on the lake, it was a bit chilly and windy at times.   We started pretty early in the morning for the boat ride around 8 am.  We navigated thru some marsh land and came to the open lake after about an hour.  Since the sunlight was now bright, most of us sat on the upper deck to get the full view of the lake.  That is when I realized that the lake was so huge that we could not see the end from where we were, and the lake actually had waves! The water was turquoise blue even though, the average depth of this lake is about 350 ft.   Compare that with our Crater lake in Oregon which is 1940 Ft deep!

Manmade land on UROS and people of the floating islands

This lake has quite a few islands in the lake, we visited two. The first one we approached from Puno was a group of floating islands of Uros. We made a stop on one of the islands. These islands are man - made with the local reed called totora. It is amazing to see people settling on these floating islands, they are living on the layers of reed, not even a sturdy land underneath. They took us in a house on the island, Men fish, build and maintain the house and he boats and women cook and knit and do some crafts.  Their boats are built from totora as well and have pretty artistic shape. They sell their crafts to tourists. They have learned English so they communicate quite well. It was so unique to see happy people, who literally even do not have a solid ground under their feet. People in our world worry so much about material things, their house, car etc, but here these people have pretty much nothing and yet they did not appear sad. We bought a small replica made by the men on the island. It reminds me of these happy people.

On the top, enter the town of Isla Taquile

Main and the only square in Taquile.

After this stop, we rode in the boat for another hour or two and got to the big island of Taquile.  Compared to the floating islands of Uros, this island was huge and had actual land, it was a  hill in th middle of the lake.  We got down from the boat and started climbing up the mountain on a hike. This hike was about a mile and a 1/2 long and was uphill all the way to the top of the hill.  We met some people and sheep on the way. The best part about this hike was the view, On one side we could see the blue lake all the time. The weather was perfect. As we approached the top, we met more people from the village.  We ended up in the town square where it looked like in Spanish central  square we saw in all the cities in Peru.  This square was definitely a meeting place for all the local people and the tourists as well. Beautiful panoramic views of the vast lake from the top of the hill were breath taking.  Even from the 13000 ft. we still could not see the end of the lake!  of course, the lake is at 12000 ft above the sea level. Our tour had arranged a lunch with the local family. They gave us insights into their culture. Their culture is still preserved, thanks to  the efforts from UNESCO.   There are no cars or hotels in the islands, people live very simple life. We saw some solar panels to generate light.  The Taquileños run their society based on community collectivism and on the Inca moral code ama sua, ama llulla, ama qhilla, (do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy). The economy is based on fishing, terraced farming horticulture based on potato cultivation, and tourist-generated income. When we went to the local house to eat lunch, they gave a simple demonstration of their traditions,  clothes, they told us how to know if a man or a woman is married or unmarried from their clothes. Men get to chew Coca leaves once they get older and get married and get a special pouch to put these leaves. The young man who told us this, looked pretty eager to be able to get older and get the special pouch! The lunch we ate was the best we had in Peru. It was "Trucha", trout lunch. The fish was so fresh and so well made. I am not a fish eater but I still remember the taste of this  home made, fresh sea food. The ambiance was unmatched with the view, the place and the weather.  Once we were done with the lunch, our boat guide did not waste any time in showing us a straight path down. Climbing up was on a winding road with gentle slope, getting down was a straight drop but quite well built with famous Incan steps. When we reached the bottom.,our boat was waiting on this side of the island. 

Now with full tummy and fun filled hearts, we started our boat ride back to Puno, It was a long ride but the minds were full of these wonderful memories.  We had made friends with our co travelers from Columbia, Mexico and time passed quickly when we came back to the dock in Puno.

What  a wonderful day we had. Before deciding to go there, we had heard and read a lot about Lake Titicaca and different views about whether we should go there or not. Our friends from Peru and others who had visited Peru were advising us not to go there and I was happy that we still decided to go and see and enjoy this marvelous lake.