When: September 2015 Weather: Warm, 26C
Leica M240/21 super elmar, 35 summilux, Nikon P900
In Hangzhou for a few days and having previously visited it only for a few hours and not having been impressed by the famous Westlake or XiHu, I resolved to spend a little more time checking out why Westlake was such an iconic lake in chinese literature such that there have been numerous poems, paintings and writings about it over the last 1500 years or so.
Located in the west of Hangzhou City, hence West Lake, it’s a very big lake surrounded on three sides by mountain and on the northwestside by Hangzhou City…
View of Xihu towards hagnzhou City
View of mountains to the east in the afternoon sun
Paths and walkways like this ring the whole lake and if you want to walk around it, it’s about 15km
The flora around the lake lotuses etc
A boat ride around Xihu is not a bad way to see the lake and its surrounding beauty spots…
famous posts in the water..symbolic of Hangzhou’s West lake
beautiful buildings on the shore
The must-see Lei Feng Pagoda stands majestically overlooking xihu
Getting on shore to visit Lei Feng Pagoda
Lei Feng area
Roof detail of Lei Feng Pagoda
The ethereal mountain ranges fringing Xihu from the top of Lei Feng
There was also a good view of a temple which was the inspiration for the song Nan Ping Wan Zhong..evening bells at Nanping Hill
close up of the Nanping Wan Zhong temple
An evening walk along the ‘Broken Bridge’ or duan chiao…willows gently wafting in the wind.
Where the children played…
and had interesting headgear..
and lovers huddled as the sun set on xihu
the kite flyers were also out
sunset on xihu
sunset on the water
Night view of the Broken Bridge
And then we watched a performance of ‘Impressions of Westlake’, a sound and visual show directed by China’s most famous film director, Zhang Yi Mou. These multimedia presentations can often be hit or miss affairs and I wasn’t really sure what we were going to see and whether it would be tacky or touristy….but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the visit to West Lake. So an area of the lake is cordoned off and open air seating on terraces is created on the bank; we were seated on the upper level in a fixed boat moored to the bank which gave excellent views of the show….
Impressions of WestLake
730pm in the evening, before the show started…the place was serene
and as the light faded, a giant round screen appeared introducing the show
the beautiful lights came on and a solitary figure appeared on the water
performers danced on the water
in an explosion of colour..
accompanied by the most haunting musical score….
as a classical love story unfolded
and then this amazing houseboat drifted into view…
while this impressive edifice appeared from the water…
with the lovers running onto it
and the houseboat beckons
the starstruck lovers die tragically and are turned into birds…
and the show ends with the theme song Impressions of West Lake Rain beautifully sung by Jane Zhang
The show lasted an hour but it went by quickly! Highly recommended!
Going back to our hotel, we passed this temple which was the tomb of one of the great generals in Chinese military history, Yue Fei…who was killed when he was not yet 40…
General Yue Fei’s tomb
We had time to visit the famous tea plantations of Long Qing which is the source of the top grade Long Qing green tea…
only the freshest youngest leaves are used…
flowers of the tea plant
street scene from He Fang Street to end our night
So on this, my second and slightly longer visit to Hangzhou, I managed to get a better idea of why Xihu is as renowned as it is…it’s not just the lake..there are many prettier lakes in the world…eg the Lake District in England, or Tegensee in Bavaria, or Lake Geneva…..and Xihu’s surrounding traffic is bad….but still, there is a certain charm to it…a combination of history, art, mountains, lakes, boats, fascinating bridges, buildings and pagodas that dot the lake shore and all these make West Lake a place that’s indeed worthy of a visit. But it can’t be done in a hurry…
The Natural Traveller 