Suzhou is known as the venice of China with all it's canals, it's much smaller then our previous destinations (Xi'An and Beijing) and prior to booking the trip with Intrepid I hadn't heard of this city! I wasn't at all dissapointed with this destination it was very pretty with the only exception being that it was extremely dificult to get taxis in Suzhou, it was so bad that it kind of reminded me of being in Croydon or Dublin where taxis are few and far between.

Several of us had just about had enough Chinese food by the time we had arrived so we treated ourselves to some pizza in a lovely little Italian restaurant opposite our hotel. The rest of our stay in Suzhou consisted of a Gondola ride through the cities canals, a visit to one of the famous gardens in the city and a brief pub crawl which started in an Aussie bar and ended in a kareoki bar several beers down the line (Nigel from the Intrepid tour wouldn't put the microphone down!).

We left Suzhou on 9th July and this time boarded a private mini bus to Shanghai where I would be spending the next six days.