Besides the many gardens in the city, Suzhou is also famous for the ancient towns nearby. Tongli is one of them, Luzhi is the other that we were interested in going to. Since I wasn't sure if we could find taxis in those towns easily, and there were five of us, I was going to hire two taxis for the day, so they could take us wherever we wanted. But the two taxis we hailed from the street, one was asking for 650 RMB ($88) for the day, and the other was asking for 600 RMB. I thought that's way too much. So instead of hiring the taxis for the whole day, I only paid them to go to the town and let them go. It worked out well for Tongli. We had no problems finding taxis there to come back to Suzhou, and the ride only cost 90 RMB each way. For Luzhi, it was a different story (see my next episode).
1. Tongli entrance. Tourist ticket cost 80 RMB/person. Seniors (70+) free.
2. Tongli is a water town, so there are many bridges, some as old as 700+ years.
3.
4. Souvenir shops on Mingqing Street getting ready to open.
5.
6.
7. Stove for cooking.
8. Inside the Pearl Pagoda Garden (珍珠塔).
9. Inside the Pearl Pagoda Garden.
10. Inside the Pearl Pagoda Garden.
11. Bird fishing demo.
12. The bird caught a fish. The lady squeezed its throat to get the fish out.
13.
14.
15.
16. Inside Tuisi Garden (退思堂).
17.
18. The temple on Luoxing Island (罗星洲).
19. Inside the temple.
20. Outside the temple, waiting for the ferry to get back to Tongli.
(To be continued)
