Hangzhou : the city built around a lake « Walk with Buddha »
By Story and photos by Cho San Lan, Free lance correspondent in Shanghai
Shanghai
Mon 18th October 2010
Hangzhou, 4 October 2010 -- Just an hour and a half from the cacophony of Shanghai, you can bask in the tranquility of lakeside beauty and mountain breezes in Hangzhou. This city is like a large garden built around a lake, and one strolls and feels that Buddha is walking behind you, or with you. The ancient trees and cultural stele take you back centuries to the cradle of civilisation, art and philosophy.
Hangzhou is an old city, founded over 2,200 years ago during the Qin dynasty. The life and culture of the peoples of this region goes back 8,000 years. It was the former capital of the Song dynasty in 1127 1279. Today it is the capital of the province of Zhejiang. For almost all Chinese who travel, it has always been a resource for rest and leisure, reflection and art, cultural expression and philosophical introspection. And yet, over the centuries, none of this has diminished the Hangzhou peoples appetite for good business. The city is cleanly laid out, Westlake taking the center stage along with its many pagodas, museums, a few exclusive shoreside hotels, and traditional restaurants (yes, and the latest coffee shops, like Jamaica Blue Mountain and Starbucks)all reachable by foot or by boat on the lake. The Hangzhou of business, banking and shopping, forms the next broad sweep of buildings as one leaves the lakeshore. A vast network of wide and well maintained roads provides easy access to neigboring cities and provinces, and to all parts of the city, except at festival times like the national Golden Week Celebrations, when everyone is on the roadand traffic can be unnerving! Best to visit Hangzhou at a quieter time of year!
Westlake (Xi Hu) is a large natural body of water at the delta of the Grand Canal and the River Quiangtang. Here the landscape is rich and green, and remote from the agitation of business busy Shanghai. But Hangzhou, just 190 kilometers from Shanghai (an hour and a half on the modern high speed rail), is no less prosperous or business oriented. Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin and Porsche cars sell extremely well in this prosperous laid back city, all their showrooms front the lakeside!
Depending on your available time, there are two ways to visit Hangzhou. If you have only a short stay of 2 or 3 days (and some even come for a day and take the last train home), one could spend a whole day just at the lake, visiting the several islands and pagodas by boat, then focus the next day on selected sites around the lake or in the city. At the ticket counters around the lake, you can purchase an all day ticket which allows you passage on any boat to any part of the lake. This is very handy, expecially if you cant read the signs in chinese and end up on the wrong island!!!! Of course, during the Golden Week, you can imagine with twenty or so boats unloading people every fifteen minutes, some of the small islands can get very crowded, leaving very little space to walk and the risk of falling into the lake! Solution, take a boat to another island!
Have lunch at one of the traditional Hangzhou restaurants like Lou Wai Lou where you can ask for their very tender special braised pork dish, or better yet, but a bit more expensive, their special steamed lake fish. First, one of the boys will bring you a live fish, its size dependent on the number in your party. You may ask for a smaller or a larger fish, but usually not less than 500 grams which is just right for two persons. In moments, the fish is brought back to your table cut in half with the flesh just hanging on the spine, and soaked in their home made orange based sour sweet sauce. The fish is cotton tender and soaked in aromas of honey, orange and pepper. Note in Chinese cuisine, it is bad luck to turn over a fish! That is why it is usually served pre-cut and both sides opened, the spine underneath.
After visiting the lakeside, you can then focus on a few key sites of the city.
Two sites not to miss are the Lingyin Temple and the Feilai Feng Grottos of the 300 Buddhas, and they are both in the park of the same monastery grounds. This is located about half an hour bus ride from Hangzhou, fare is 3 yuan. From the bus stop, or where the taxi leaves you, take a short walk and buy your tickets to both Feilai Feng and Lingyin. They are both in the same park grounds. Walking through the several grottos by the side of a small creek, you will quickly notice the numerous buddhas sculpted right into the stone sides of the mountain. These give the many varied representations of Buddha, though the most popular and most interesting is the second grotto of the laughing Buddha. It shows a fat jovial buddha, about whom the poem has been written, His belly is big enough to contain all intolerable things in the world. His mouth is ever ready to laugh at all snobbish people of the earth!
Also striking are the sculpted details in cast bronze of the various stele fronting the buddhas. These too contribute to the sanctity of the grotto, though some seem to be in a combat stance! Note in the early days that the old word zhong or now zu, the word for temple, also meant fortress as this was often the protective rampart of the monks, the villagers and the temple itself.
Just towards the end of the trail of grottos, one is now walking beside the gardens of the Lingyin, a Buddhist temple of the Chan sect, also called the Temple of the Souls Retreat. It is the largest and the wealthiest of the Buddhist temples in China and holds the renowned Sakyamuni Buddha, sculpted from 24 pieces of camphor wood and delicately leafed in pure gold. It stands majestic 19 meters above the faithful and one can feel the weight of his watchful eyes. Hence even today, this temple is strongly sought for active worship.
Upon leaving the temple, and threading back over the trails of the grottos to the bus park, one sometimes feels leaden, perhaps with regrets for things past, perhaps with wishes to accomplish, perhaps with hopes for a changed future. One feels somehow, that one has walked with Buddha.