7 June, 2017
Black out curtains, a very large soft bed, great air conditioning and a big fluffy doona. It was only the sound of Lynn’s alarm going off that woke us at 8:30 am so that we could make it to breakfast on time.
Lynn has a busy schedule for us today and since it looks like I didn’t allow enough time to see Changsha then we had better get moving. It will be another hot and humid day out today and it would be very easy to lock myself away in this very nice hotel…. but breakfast calls. And what a wonderful breakfast it is. The best in a while.
Our hotel (The Crowne Plaza) is located right at the Metro Wuyi Square, exit 8. The plan this morning is to walk the 15 minutes to the river then cross half way to Tangerine Island (sometimes referred to as Orange Island). Maybe there isn’t a clear Chinese word that distinguishes Orange from Tangerine (???). Lynn asked why it hadn’t been called Mandarin. The actual Chinese name is Ju Zi Zhou Island.
We arrived at the river bank and now struggled to see how we could get off the river bridge down to the island. After a bit of faffing about Lynn remembered that there was a Metro station on the island and one of the station exits was right by the river bank. Too easy when you know how. I thought we might be in for another Chine-ism for a minute.
Down the escalator (obviously nobody takes luggage to the island so the escalator is operating correctly), through the walkway and we pop up on the island.
Other than the thick smoke that hangs over the city and river it very much looks like the walkways around the Brisbane River. Even the river is the same muddy brown colour.
The Tourist Information Centre is close to the Metro access steps so we dropped in to get a map and the very helpful assistant advised us that it takes about an hour to walk the island and return. I can handle that in this heat. The plan is to then head back to the hotel by Metro (2 stations door-to-door in air-conditioned comfort), take a break in the mid-afternoon heat then head out again late in the afternoon to visit the remaining part of the ancient city wall.
The island is only about 300 meters wide and has a variety of gardens, parks, historic houses, lakes, bridges and pavilions. After about 2 hours it is clear that it will takes us the better part of the entire day to walk to the end of the island and back. It is hot so we rethink the plan and decide to catch the tourist “train” back to the top of the island once we reach the bottom end.
At the bottom end of the island is a massive statue of Chairman Mao as a young man. There is lots of Chinese propaganda about the statue and its significance to the Island but to us it is just another cheesy, man-made statue on what otherwise would be pretty parkland.
Although I feel like a typical Chinese tourist I am glad of a ride back to the top end of the island. It’s time for a mango ice cream and a Metro ride back to the hotel to cool off.
By about 4:00 pm the worst of the heat has abated, a slight breeze is blowing and the smoke has cleared a little. Time to head to the Metro (no walking…) to see the only remaining section of the ancient city wall which was rebuilt in the 14th Century in brick and stone after the original earth wall (built in the 1st Century) was found to be inadequate.
On the remaining part of the wall is the Tianxin Pavilion. Although the Pavilion is now dwarfed by the city it stands on a small hill with a nice view of the haze of modern China.
A cooler afternoon made for a very pleasant afternoon in Changsha. It is obvious that we could have and should have spent a bit longer here but our 30-day visa is starting to run out and we still have the Zhangjiajie National Park to see.
Since it’s a bit cooler we decide to stroll back to the hotel via the pedestrian shopping mall. This leads to a subterranean shopping mall which in turn takes us all the way back to our Metro subway exit. Almost like an underground city.
In the pedestrian mall we noticed a poster on a wall. Of what we have seen so far in China there isn’t too much “action” taken to stop the smoke haze.
Unfortunately we have to check out of the Crowne Plaza hotel and take a slow train to Zhangjiajie. There is no bullet train from Changsha to our destination so we have booked a 4-berth 1st class sleeper cabin for the 6-hour day trip. At least I can do some emails and prepare the photos for the blog.
After a fairly ordinary hotel in Hangzhou (rated at 9.1 on Booking.com) and a brilliant hotel in Changsha (only rated 8.3 on Booking.com) I’m not feeling all that confident in our hotel in the wild backwoods of Zhangjiajie (rated 8.6).
picernicbasket 