3 nights in Linhai, Zhejiang

By Eva Tollett, Fudan University Shanghai, China

Travelling around China is unlike any travelling I’ve done before. With the exception of the big cities or rural tourist hotspots, there is little to read about the smaller cities. The past week was Mid-Autumn festival granting us with 8 days of holiday. (Don’t worry, China never slacks off so this was supplemented by having classes on the weekends both before and after.)

The internal tourist industry in China is booming. Hotels and flights triple in price during this period and are booked as soon as they become available. Having initially wanted to visit Huangshan (the famous yellow mountains), we soon went off it upon realising the cost and amount of other tourists with the same idea. 

We then settled upon Linhai, a city 2.5 hours on the train south of Shanghai, with a humble 1 million residents and surrounded by mountains. Linhai’s main attraction seemed to be its ancient centre surrounded by Tang dynasty city walls. We were also intrigued by a completely preserved village in the mountains which fought against Japanese pirates in the Ming dynasty. 

On our first day we wandered around the East Lake and hired boats to cross it. It was peaceful and scenic until we played Vroom Vroom by Charli XCX (a cultural exchange?).

That evening we went to Ziyang Street for dinner which was packed with yummy street food and Chinese tourists. I tried a 肉夹馍 (Roujiamo) which is a bit like a Chinese burger but with flaky pastry filled with pork. 

The following day we set out to visit the Taozhu ancient village. We spoke to our hotel to see if they could arrange a driver for us. Instead, our hotel owner ended up driving us there himself – a true testament to Chinese hospitality. Although you had to buy a ticket to enter the village as a tourist, it felt authentic and was still genuinely lived in. We attracted attention as the only foreigners and were invited into people’s houses for tea and games of Mahjong. 

On our final full day, we hired mopeds to visit some temples on the outskirts of the city. This clearly wasn’t something people usually requested and the first few shops refused. Eventually we found a man willing to rent us 3 mopeds for the day and set off. This was definitely a highlight of the trip and led us to spots we couldn’t have reached otherwise.

Linhai was a great experience and being the only foreign tourists gave us privileges we wouldn’t have been awarded otherwise. Being able to speak a bit of Chinese meant we could properly communicate with the locals and learn about a very different lifestyle to our Shanghai student experience.

This trip made me realise how many other beautiful and interesting places there must be in China that few foreign tourists or social media has discovered.