Music: Royksopp - Junior
Today started with a little more washing before making my way down for breakfast. I was then picked up and taken to the train station for my short bullet train transfer to SuZhuo. On arrival I met my uide for the day and was whisked to one of SuZhuo's many gardens for a brief look around before being shown the only original section of the city wall (over 2000 years old) and both a land gate and a water gate (for entry into the inner canals) side by side.
From here we went to a silk factory, where I saw silk crysalises spun into threads. Each thread is made from 8 pods that are unwinding the whole time. As one runs out the people running the machine simply pick another out of the pot and add it to the flywheel drawing up the thread.
After lunch we headed to another beautiful water garden and then went for a boat ride around the old canals in the city.
From here it was onwards for a look around Tong Li, an ancient water village, filled with canals rather than roads. On the banks of the canals you can pay to watch a man comorant fishing. The birds catch the fish but hold it in their gullets, to be retrieved once they are back on the boat!
It was then time for my drive home. I was told this would take up to 2 hours depending on the traffic. The driver seemed to set about it at some pace. Now, I know that most road users sem rather suicidal in China... The bicycle and e-bike users seem to weave randomly amongst traffic in cities, paedestrians saunter over 6 lanes of traffic etc, but I have to say I'd not witnessed anything like this before. The driver we had was weaving over all lanes of the highway (they have no lane discipline here but this was serious tight turn weaving) at high speeds, passing most cars with no more than a few inches to spare. I'm normally quite a laid back passenger, but I have to say, I felt quite shaken up when I got back to the hotel. It was as if the guy had seen the film Taxi (the French one) and taken notes!
I've now got the rest of the evening to kick back and unwind from the trip home. All day I've been in an awesomely chilled mood. Wondering around those beautiful gardens just made me more so. I'm going to go have a beer and see if I can recover that feeling.
Tomorrow I'm travelling most of the day so I'm not sure when the next update will be.
Until again...
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