Suzhou

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Took a high-speed train out of Shanghai and it could have been the French TGV: comfortable, fast and fairly new. Raced through flat countryside with pockets of high-rise buildings here and there, occasional handfuls of houses, fields, ponds and canals, coming an hour later to Suzhou.

What I at first took to be a charming little town of tree-lined streets turned out to be a city of five million with broad streets. On the main ones there’s a lane for cars, a lane for buses and a lane for bikes and scooters. Not like Indian chaos. But you have to remember this extra scooter lane and look both ways. Was nearly hit by a scooter coming down the lane the wrong way (there is a bit of Asian chaos here after all). What’s more, many of the scooters are electric so you can’t hear them coming and it seems at night some of these don’t use the headlight as a way to conserve energy.

Suzhou is full of picturesque canals and this is where some of the charm comes from. Unfortunately they’re really flowing sewers and they stink when it rains. But overlook that and you’ll like Suzhou.

Many of the women here are very beautiful and they dress fashionably, showing a lot of shapely leg. In fact, Suzhou is renowned for its beautiful women. Put them together with the canals and you have reason to stay for a while.

There’s English everywhere here: on street signs below the street name in Mandarin and on storefronts. All of the license plates are in Arabic script. Many of the shops are upscale and the streets are largely free of litter, although someone told me the countryside can be unkempt.

There are also the gardens here. I visited the Garden of the Master of the Nets (all the gardens have evocative, poetic names). Serene, carefully designed, they’re not like Western parks or flower gardens. They're an intricate combination of ponds, rock “sculptures” which are thoughtfully built stacks of rocks given interesting shape by nature (water erosion) and cemented together. There are bamboo and banana trees, shrubs and other vegetation, stone walkways but little grass. The buildings are whitewashed stone and laquered wood, smooth and cherrywood red or very dark brown and seem to be rooms for contemplation. You drift slowly through the maze, enjoying the quiet and people speak in low voices. You can almost hear the thoughts of long-dead scholars and the dreams of love-lorn girls floating near the ceiling in the corners of the rooms, dreams caught in old spider-webs.

Visited the Suzhou Silk Museum and its well-laid-out displays. Old and more recent stuff, although not much in the way of bright colours. In one room silkworms munched mulberry leaves and it sounded like light rain pattering down. Just outside this room stood mulberry trees planted and tended like European vineyards. The antique working looms in another room looked like strange wooden vehicles for two or three people, early time machines perhaps.

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Photos

Suzhou canal.
A rainy view of one of Suzhou's many canals.

Neon glory
The Chinese use coloured lights to great effect to light their cities at night.

Garden of the Master of the Nets
Trees, rocks and ponds abound.

Portal to another place.
A rare, round doorway in the Master of the Nets Garden.

Serenity under rainfall.
Despite the rain, this garden was a great place to visit slowly.