Zhouzhuang 周庄
by chris
Zhouzhuang is a town outside Suzhou. I hesitate to call it a tourist town but the tourist spots were all we saw. We went there for the day and saw this charming little old town and had a great time.
Monkey royalty Chris and Joy went with apes Ivy, Sharrif and Chris (from China, England and England) to Zhouzhuang. If you have ever been to Shantangjie (山塘街, you have a good idea what Zhouzhuang is like. It is mostly narrow, cobbled streets with little shops on either side, and canals running through the town. The canals apparently form the character 井, which means a well (although that is presumably incidental).
The town is sprinkled with attractions like big houses for lords, parks, a daoist temple and, of course, the canals. In case you have not been to Suzhou, it has canals running in each direction through it, running alongside main streets and necessitating bridges everywhere. It is my favourite part of living in Suzhou, in fact. And in Zhouzhuang, the canals are even more obvious.
They are full of boats waiting to take tourists, but they are organised so that not everyone is yelling at you to go with them. We went through the town on a boat that rocked perilously left and right as we moved. The old man rowing was singing in the local dialect, which some of us didn’t like but I loved. He asked for a tip for the song and even though, for some reason, there was a sign saying we should not give him tips, I handed him ten kuai (a dollar and a half). He raised two fingers, asking for twenty kuai, and I laughed and said no. He kept smiling anyway.
The boat ride was my favourite part of the day. It was peaceful, musical and interesting at the same time. We got to see the old walls of the houses lined up by the canal, the banks, the boats, the bridges and the birds.
Traveling to Zhouzhuang was a bit more expensive than last year’s trip to Qinhuangdao and Beidaihe (in Hebei, when we lived in Beijing), and it was quite touristy, which can be really annoying in China, but overall it was worth the time and money. We would also like to visit Tongli (同理), near Zhouzhuang and, so they say, far less touristy. Guess that’s our next stop!
Tags: China, Suzhou, zhouzhuang, 周庄, 苏州