Suzhou, Hangzhou, Guilin and Yangshuo: How China's Trains Ruined Me For All Other Travel
With just two days left in Shanghai, I decided a change of pace was in order – mostly horizontal. Saturday brought the kind of frightfully dreary weather that makes staying indoors feel like a survival tactic. So, I dedicated the day to mall hopping, sampling any food that caught my eye and didn't appear capable of fighting back. Sunday morning, bright and early, I hopped the Metro to Shanghai Hongqiao Station and snagged a seat on the first high-speed bullet train to Suzhou, a quick 80km hop away.
Suzhou is often called the 'Venice of China,' a comparison I now find… ambitious. Sure, it's a beautiful city with impressive gardens and temples, but the crowds and bustle along its canals reminded me less of Venetian serenity and more of the peaceful calm found at a seagull convention fighting over a single dropped french fry. Accuracy aside, Suzhou delivered what might be the best meal of the trip so far: a simple Sichuan Stir-fry and a Fried Prickly Fish that, for about $15, completely reset my expectations for deliciousness. Properly fueled, I wandered through the (presumably correctly named) Humble Administrator's Garden and navigated the two main tourist streets, a vibrant gauntlet of merchants, before heading back to the station via Metro for the HSR ride back to the city. Suzhou was really gorgeous, and while packed, the narrow canals and beautiful gardens really made the day trip worth it.
Now, after a week of solo travel where my primary conversational partners were the occasionally terrifying voices in my own head, I was seriously craving some external stimuli. A quick scroll through Meetup led me to a bar crawl. Our guide was Tony (not his birth name – I appreciate the tradition of locals adopting easily pronounceable Western names so we 老外 don't butcher theirs). Tony, a young local keen to practice his English and meet folks, orchestrated an excellent night exploring Shanghai's offerings: great drinks, surprisingly cool clubs, and absolutely, definitely, no illegal substances involved, I’d prefer not getting sent to the Gulags. The crew was a fun mix: Australians, Singaporeans, a few of Tony's local buddies, and a lovely Argentinian couple on a backpacking adventure through China.
Waking up surprisingly hangover-less the next day, I was back on the HSR, this time southbound to Hangzhou, about 90 minutes away. My hotel landed me right on West Lake, providing some genuinely stunning views. I strolled around Gushan Park and across the Baidi Causeway, exploring a tiny island peppered with pagodas and temples. The following day in Hangzhou involved a walk through 双峰插云 (Shuangfeng Chayun), a lovely park filled with shrines and small museums honoring 20th-century Chinese artists, writers, and thinkers.
Next stop: the Lingyin Scenic Area, home to a famous Buddhist Temple and caves. It was packed, primarily with Chinese tour groups (you notice foreigners become rarer the further you get from Tier 1 cities), dutifully following their flag-waving guides like battalions on a holy mission. Despite the masses, there was a definite beauty and serenity to the place. However, the irony wasn't lost on me: while women were being politely reminded to cover bare shoulders before entering the temple itself, the surrounding grounds seemed to operate under slightly different rules. Apparently, serenity is compatible with merchants shouting about souvenirs, people chain-smoking near altars, and extensive photo ops featuring traditional costumes. Priorities, I guess. After another hour-long walk back to the hotel, I mentally prepped for a long travel day ahead.
That next day was, funnily enough, one of the parts of this trip I was most looking forward to: High-Speed Rail, Business Class, from Shanghai to Guilin. After a quick train back up to Shanghai from Hangzhou, I embarked on what I can only describe as my favorite travel experience ever. Six and a half hours cocooned in comfort, whizzing through 1500 km of Chinese countryside at 300km/hr while being gently pampered with drinks and food, all for about $200. Let that sink in. That’s like doing Paris to Warsaw by train in 6.5 hours (currently a 14-hour, multi-train odyssey or a soul-crushing 16-hour drive). For my American friends: imagine hopping a train in SF and arriving comfortably in Denver six hours later. It would change everything. And keep in mind, my $200 ticket was the fancy-pants option; you could do the same trip in complete comfort for as little as $40.
Honestly, the journey was amazing, but it also pissed me off profoundly. WE COULD HAVE THIS. The US is supposedly the richest country ever, yet China, in just over a decade of its Belt and Road Initiative, hasn't just caught up in rail; it's lapped us multiple times. The US was built on rail (ironically by Chinese laborers) and now our fastest trains are pathetically slow, and roads dominate transport while still lagging behind Chinese highway infrastructure. Imagine the economic jolt from connecting major hubs within hours. SF to LA in 2-3 hours? SF to Seattle? SF to freaking Austin? (Yes, I might actually visit Texas if they had decent trains). Man, I fucking love trains. This whole blissful experience just hammered home what I'll likely never have back home. It was like a perfect first date with someone amazing, knowing there’s zero chance of a second. I practically stepped off that train grieving for functional infrastructure.
Getting into Guilin felt a bit anticlimactic after that. I was only staying one night and had visions of exploring night markets, but upon reaching my hotel, I promptly PTFO'd and called it an early night. Guilin, with its modest 1.5 million inhabitants, feels quite small relatively speaking. I knew the real regional gem, Yangshuo, awaited me next.
The following morning, I took a four-hour cruise down the Li River. It was a stunning scenic journey that, even under grey skies, left me genuinely awestruck by China’s natural beauty. The dramatic carved mountains and rolling hills stretching into the distance were ridiculously impressive. Honestly, the whole Avatar-esque landscape had me so floored I spent most of the trip out on the boat deck, choosing chilly air and epic views over the comfy seats inside. Here comes the photo dump:
I arrived in Yangshuo yesterday, my base for the last few days before heading to Kyoto on Sunday. The plan now is simple: decompress, soak in the incredible natural sights around the resort, and generally recharge before embracing the wonderful chaos I anticipate in Japan.
And that wraps up this particular leg of the journey – from horizontal Shanghai sightseeing to the vertical shock of Guilin's peaks, with a side of HSR-induced existential longing.
Thanks for reading along! As always, feel free to message me with your thoughts, reactions, or just to confirm that yes, we really should have those trains. Stay tuned, because there’s one more China-centric post coming your way before we fully pivot to Japan. That one will be a bit less 'what I did' and more 'what I thought' – diving deeper into the overall experience, my impressions of Chinese culture, the aspects I found fascinating, and where it inevitably, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes hilariously, bumped up against my own wiring.
— Lionel