Xitang (西塘)

Just a couple of hours out of Shanghai, I had never heard of Xitang till I started planning for my Shanghai trip and researched on things to do.

Mission Impossible 3 was shot here... where Xitang was passed off as old Shanghai. Looks like a Chinese version of Venice. Known as Water Village, they are quite common in the neighborhood of Shanghai because of the dense distribution of Rivers and streams.

We planned on using only public transport. So we made our way to Shanghai South Station (for both bus and rail) and took a bus to a town called Jiashan (嘉善县). From JIanshan bus stop there were shuttle minibuses to Xitang (西塘). Thanks to wikipedia from where we could lift the corresponding mandarin script for pointing out to people.

Ohhh..Kaayyy... now, where is the water or the water village. The bus from Jiashan dropped us off in the middle of nowhere badass type small town. The touts waiting around the bus stand had us correctly identified as Indus (mandarin for Indian) thanks to the mandarin dubbed Indian saans-bahu serials. Yep! they air locally in China. We were rescued by our co-travellers who were also headed for the water village. Apparently, the Xitang water village is accessible through the Xitang town (where we were) after buying tickets of course.

And here we were.. .

Picturesque !!

We liked what we saw and decided to spend a night here. Managed a cosy homestay for a 100 RMB only.

Since it was Sunday, there was quite a crowd of local tourists who come down for the weekend from Shanghai or Hangzhou. Its a place where you can relax and walk around the canals and generally chill out. There is nothing much to do other than taking it easy.

We hadn't had much for breakfast, and nothing for lunch. So, when we went out for a walk in the afternoon we were really hungry. Thats when we realized that we were in a spot of bother. There were no restaurants in Xitang with an english menu. Neither did anybody understand english, nor did I have my phrasebook with me. We pretty much walked around entire Xitang before we stumbled into a place with some sort of translation and we made the most of it.