A very beautiful city in China is Suzhou. You can find it about 80km west of Shanghai. Even if it is not so easy to find it on a normal european map it has about 6.7 million residents together with its suburbs. Suzhou is surrounded by lakes and channels and the city is famous for its parks and gardens.
If you are brave enough you should travel around in Suzhou by bus. I can promise that it is worth giving a try 😉 Even though the busses might be very full sometimes the people are always very polite and patient. When the bus starts please make sure you have stable hold! Even in China I have never before seen bus drivers driving as if they take part in the Paris-Dakar Ralley but in Suzhou you find them 😀
When I came to China the first time I was still living in Switzerland. With this background it was quite amazing to see the chinese traffic. There is only one word which could describe it: Free Style! It took me some time to recognize that the freestyle driving didn’t seem to result in many more accidents because I could hardly see any damaged or scratched cars driving around. It seems to work if everybody is driving with the same idea of traffic in his mind. But until now I could not find statistics which could confirm my feelings.
There are two things you should do when you visit Suzhou. First of all visit some of the beautiful gardens.
And if you have some time left make a boat tour on the channels which surround the old city center.
A walk in on of the older quarters of Suzhou is very nice too.
When you are lucky you can see a Chinese Opera in the street for free. If you have a good stomach buy a snack from the dealers which are probably around and have a relaxed opera evening.
