To Hangzhou

Time to move on. I had booked two nights in a Hangzhou (杭州) hostel. It's a city with about 8 million population and renowned for scenic beauty, as it is on the shore of the West Lake (西湖), much celebrated in poetry, and that all the other West Lakes in China acknowledge as the original.


It was raining lightly when I woke. I was glad that I had chosen to take a western buffet breakfast at the hostel, I didn't have to venture into the drizzle. I missed my normal breakfast of cereal and fruit so I made the most of this meal. Besides milk and cereal, toast, butter, jam, eggs, potatoes, ham, tea and coffee were available.


The white cat of yesterday's pair came in from the drizzle and made itself comfortable next to me, absorbing my body heat. After its fur had dried a bit, it ventured out again and returned after a while. Idiosyncratic cat.

I caught the metro to Hongqiao Train Station, near the western end of line 2. It was so new that it wasn't on the guide's map and line diagrams in metro carriages had addenda for the new stations visibly stuck on. It's next to Hongqiao Airport and clearly the authorities intend transfers between the two to be easy. The station was vast, though I can't say that I liked the layout, I had to walk the length of the ground level to reach the escalators to the departure level.


Hangzhou is 170 km southwest of Shanghai, and it took only 40 minutes to get there on the high speed train. Hangzhou Station was also large but messier as there were many people passing through and locals touting tours and accommodation. It was still raining. I decided that I would buy a return ticket before going to the hostel to save time two days later. If I had been smarter, I would have bought it at the ticket centre in Shanghai.


Unfortunately I had arrived during lunch hour, when only half the ticket counters are operating while the other half have lunch, then they swap after a half hour. As a result, the queues were longer than usual. It took me some 50 minutes to reach the counter and get my ticket. More time than I spent on the train. Oh well, there wasn't anything better to do in the atrocious weather anyway.

Next problem was to find the bus to the hostel. I asked several times, each time getting a little closer to the bus stop. Eventually I found a route diagram at a wrong bus stop, and whipping out my compass, finally worked out where I was with respect to the desired stop. I got to the correct part of town, jacket and jeans thoroughly soaked.


The hostel is located off a historic pedestrian only street. It was great not to have to look over one's shoulder for approaching motorcycles. The girl at the hostel counter was super welcoming and this partly made up for the dismal day. I had a room to myself, but it was on the top floor just under the roof and a little cramped. Still it had all the essentials, sink, shower, air conditioner, and even broadband. I braved the rain for a late lunch then rested for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening I dressed to dine out, then heard the patter of the rain on the roof, gave up and made do with snack food. I brought my diary up to date, and read myself to sleep to end a wash-out of a day.