The beginning of the water counties – lots of canals and rivers everywhere, and lots of money. Following the Grand Canal was…grand.
To make up for the lower pollution levels, some peasants set fire to their fields for me.
I quite liked Nanjing. The canals and Fuzimiao temple area near the hostel were great. Here’s a few random street scenes, including the bikeshop staff fitting a stand to my bike.
Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum is all a bit over-blown, but very popular with the Chinese
This is just a classic China image – a group of staff dancing to 80’s music on the footpath, before starting work.
A random pagoda, in a random town foreign tourists never see – but very nice all the same.
Suzhou was nice enough, but getting a bit over-touristy and artifical. The Master of Nets garden was peaceful, I think I was lucky to be there when there weren’t any tour groups coming through.
Some days I get the feeling that the planners won’t stop until all of China is either a road or a shopping mall. Some of the new expressways seem to have very little traffic on them.
