After Shanghai the volunteers all split up and went their separate ways again. It's a real shame to think we won't see everyone in one place again until the summer now! The Direction I took with around 5 or 6 of the guys was Suzhou, one of two cities considered the most beautiful in all of China by many. One thing is for sure - it was an interesting change from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis of Shanghai going straight to a town of a mere 2 million people.

We were only in Suzhou for 3 days before heading over to our final destination, Guilin, so there won't be too much to say about it. It is indeed a beautiful city, but certainly nobody's favourite place on our travels. The waterways which make the city famous were very attractive and particularly stereotypically Chinese, but excessive crowds did ruin the feel of the place. I found the best way to get a feel for the waterways was at night when everyone had gone to sleep, and so it wasn't busy at all.

We got a good look round town by hiring bikes from the Hostel we were staying at. We may have regretted it at first when we had to find bikes that weren't broken before we could go (Alex's bike literally split in half when he sat on it) but it was no doubt a great way to see the city. The small winding streets near the waterways were much more interesting than the major roads, which look just like any Chinese city. Occasionally however on the major roads you might get to see a very large pagoda or similar such things. Such buildings however were generally quite expensive to visit, so we had to do with seeing them from the outside.

Suzhou is famous for it's gardens so we naturally visited the biggest and most well known one - The Humble Admistrators Garden. I would like to say that humble and flamboyant very often don't go together, so i'm honestly not that convinced that the original owner was that humble. The place was stuffed full of very dramatic classical architecture, landscaping and not much else. Just like everything in Suzhou however, it was ruined by the swarms of people everywhere. Even outside the garden for about half a mile there were hordes of tourists fighting there way towards the garden, continously being ambushed by souvenier sellers and street food vendors. Luckily, Chinese street food is generally amazing, so that made the fight there and back slightly more enjoyable.

The last thing to say about Suzhou is actually the journey away from it. To get to Suzhou took maybe around an hour and a half to two hours. Getting back took 20 - 30 minutes. How? Bullet train! What they say about these special trains appears to be true. They are indeed lightning fast and so smooth that you don't even notice that it's fast.

Annnd with a 26 hour train journey to go, we made our way to our last destination - Guilin.

Read on in the next blog!