National day 2013: XiTang (moved from old blog)

 Mini-adventure part 2: Xi Tang and Tom Cruise

After a blissful three days in Shanghai it was time to pack again and move on to the second place on my list, Xi Tang. Xi Tang is a small ancient water town about an hours drive from Shanghai. The town is so small that there is not a train station, and the bus station is an old lady with an umbrella and a box of cash by the side of the road. She was incredibly surprised to see me as I am fairly certain I was the only non-Chinese tourist in the whole town. 

I had only been in the town for about half an hour before getting myself into trouble. There are no taxis in the town so I jumped into a small tuc tuc thingy armed with the address of the hostel. Immediately the guy driving hatched a plan. He began by quoting me a huge number and looked really disappointed when I called his bluff, next he tried to get my to stay in a different hotel from the one I had booked telling me that mine was closed. I had heard about this particular rouse and so I didn't fall for it. I grabbed my bag and tried to walk off, he grabbed it back and started yelling at me. I rarely get a chance to use my less-than-friendly Chinese so I yelled almost every bad word I could think of and he backed off looking very surprised. Eventually a policeman appeared and I explained all. He did not seem surprised and took over, taking some books from the hotel and keys from the guys tuc tuc and then walked me to my hostel. He was a very nice man who seemed to just keep apologising the whole time we were walking. Finally we found my hostel and I checked in. 

The girl in the hostel spoke no English at all but we managed. The hostel was in a small courtyard down a long alley, had I not been with the policeman there was no way I would have found it.

Xi Tang proved to be a beautiful ancient town all set along a series of small canals with charming bridges. The whole place is really small and I walked about the whole place in a few hours having seen everything. The vast majority of the little shops and alleyways were full of touristy trinkets that can be found all over China, regardless I found a few small things that were unique to Xi Tang. Bamboo cups of all sizes being an example, I bought 2 for myself and 2 for Josh as a gimmick present although I actually really like them. 

I found out fairly soon that the place is still very proud of having had Mission Impossible 3 filmed there. At several points about the town there were big pictures of Tom Cruise with backgrounds matching the one in the picture. I also came across many signs outside of restaurants saying TOM ATE HERE or TOM'S FAVOURITE RESTAURANT. I haven't actually watched the film but I am now a little intrigued. 

I spent lots of time in Xi Tang having my picture taken or going for meals with the Chinese Students staying in my hostel. I think they appreciated the opportunity to escape their teacher as she was a very bossy and very scary woman. Not someone I would want to mess with (and I thought I was a strict teacher). 

I went with some of the students to a bar on the largest of the bar streets, 6 of us walked in and took the population of the bar to a huge 7! I suspect we may have woken up the barman when we opened the door. A few hours in there and we were basically running the place, I taught the barman mixing drinks and the students uploaded all their music onto the music system for him. Close to 20Gb of iTunes stuff although most was KPop so i doubt it will come in too useful. 

Xi Tang is beautiful and worth  visit if possible but two days there was definitely enough time.