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From Ningbo to Putuoshan was relatively easy: Taxi to ferry station and quickly buy tickets to Putuoshan. Then wait and wait so that we can travel by bus an hour to get to the ferry terminal then take turbojet boat to Putuoshan. Arrive about 11 a.m. Buy tickets to enter the island and then look for and find the hotel bus for the Xilei hotel.

At the hotel we are unhappy with the room they give us and not much happier with the one we get when we complain. The first room looked onto a wall, the second looked onto the lobby atrium. In both cases the room lacked natural light which was a shame given the beautiful weather. Still, it was an incentive to get out of the room!

We unpacked, had our ritual cup of tea and then spent the afternoon walking around near the Xilei. We walked from the hotel up the island to the entrance of the Fayun Si, then back down towards the ferry pier and the area just south of our hotel. We walked thorugh a tunnel under the hill and found the other side still undeveloped but undergoing some kind of construction. Had supper in a restaurant opposite the Putuoshan hotel. We ordered a steamed fish which was not bad but not the best we have had. Then we strolled back to our hotel and turned in for the night.

Putuoshan Day 1 Saturday, September 9

Jan had breakfast on her own in the restaurant and was not impressed. It was a Chinese buffet, but she was late and the hot milk was cold, etc.

After breakfast we left the hotel and walked east towards the beach. Then we turned south and headed for the Guanyin statue. We tried a couple of hotels for lunch and reluctantly accepted the third as being the least bad. None of the restaurants had any windows let alone the outdoor patio that Jan craved. Funnily enough, the hotel we ate had had been offered to us at the ferry terminal in Ningbo.

After lunch we walked down to the statue and spent an hour looking around. The views of the sea were spectacular, although the statue and its surroundings were a bit bare to be really beautiful. We left the statue and walked over to the temple nestled against the rocky shore below the statue and there met two Americans who are teaching in Beijing at a university. They told us that they had recently visited Wutaishan, another of the four sacred Buddhist mountains (Emeishan, Putuoshan, Wutaishan, and Jiuhuashan) and really liked it.

The temple itself wasn’t really special, but its site was and we spent a very nice half hour sitting on the rocks below the temple watching the waves. When we got tired of that we walked through a nearby village and came out onto a beach area that was fronted by lots of seafood restaurants and hotels. 

We met the manager in front of one of the hotels owned by Citic. He was very young and very happy to practice his English with some native speakers. As expected, the hotel was beyond our budget. We walked on and then came across another hotel that had table set out in front for dinner. This was just what Jan had been looking for for lunch and so she prevailed on Gerry to eat dinner there. We did our usual meat, veg, and rice and quite enjoyed the whole thing. Finally, in the increasing darkness, we walked past the ferry terminal and around past the Putuoshan hotel and back up to the Xilei.

Putuoshan Day 2 Sunday, September 10

We walked to the Putuoshan hotel on the way to the ferry pier and had their buffet breakfast. Gerry liked it quite a lot. Jan wasn’t too fussed. She misses her fruit and cereal.

Changed hotel twice today. First we went to the Holiday Inn but found that instead of putting us in the room they had showed us the previous day, they wanted to put us in a room in the far back of the hotel that overlooked a roof. We refused and walked out. Jan then walked down the road and found a much older hotel that offered rooms with balconies facing the sea for half the price of the Holiday Inn. Jan was pleased; Gerry was charmed. We were both happy.

We left the hotel and walked up the hill to the temple at the top of the hill in the center of the island. We walked down the slow way, following the road that lead us almost to the door of our original hotel, the Xilei. Set off to walk back up to our new hotel but Jan pooped out half way and so we caught a bus for the last 1 km or so. Then we had supper in a small fish restaurant at the bottom of the path to the summit temple.

Putuoshan Day 3 Monday, September 11

Rained all day. We walked from our hotel out to the northeast tip of the island and visited some caves and temples there. The rain was pretty heavy at times, but it didn’t matter too much as we had our boots on and umbrellas.

Walked back to the Fayun Si and spent a very pleasant hour there followed by a seafood lunch at another of the small restaurants that cluster at the bottom of the path to the summit. After lunch we walked down towards the watch tower that we had spotted on our very first day. It was a little disappointing in that you couldn’t climb up to the top and the ground floor housed a kind of souvenir stall. Much more interesting was the view we got from below the watchtower on the seaward side. While there, we noticed and photographed a legion of bugs clinging to every surface, wall, steps, and so on. They would scurry away as we approached and return as soon as we passed.

After leaving the watchtower, Gerry walked to Puji Si and Jan waited for a bus back to the hotel. After a short wait, she changed her mind and walked back to the hotel instead, stopping to buy some very expensive apples on the way.

When Gerry got back only fifteen minutes after Jan, he found her sitting on the balcony enjoying reading and drinking tea in the fading light. Truly this balcony was a wonderful find. We snacked in the room and worked on photos.

Putuoshan to Hangzhou: Tuesday, September 12

On our planned last morning on Putuoshan, we got up, had a small Chinese breakfast in the Yin Hai Hotel, then packed our bags and went downstairs to check out. Once there we were surprised to learn that the ferry to Ningbo had been cancelled until further notice because of an approaching typhoon. The rain from the previous day was probably part of the same weather system. What should we do?

We had just about resigned ourselves to sitting it out when we heard that there was a ferry to another island and that from there we would be able to get a bus to the mainland. We changed our minds again, hopped on a bus and hurried down to the harbor where we bought our tickets to Shenjiamen.

The ferry was much bigger than the one that had brought us from Ningbo. But it was also much more crowded and once ensconced in seats, hard won in the throng, we both wondered if we would have been better standing outside. Jan in particular, envisioned how difficult it would be to escape from the cabin should the ferry capsize. She did not enjoy the voyage knowing that if anything went wrong she was sure to drown. But of course she didn’t and we arrived safely.

Once off the boat, the next problem was finding the bus station where we reportedly could continue directly on to Hangzhou, avoiding the hassle of a stop in Ningbo. We spied a couple of buses and headed towards them hoping they would take us to the bus station. On the way, we were accosted by a man wanting us to eat in his restaurant. Jan politely said no thank you and he asked the next usual question, where are you from. Jan told him and he asked where we were going. Jan again explained that we wanted to go to the bus station (qi che zhan). He explained to us where to go and what to do, but unfortunately most of it was lost on us. He patiently tried again and Jan understood that somehow we were to go along the street but didn’t understand the rest. Finally the man, very kindly, walked along the street a ways and pointed out to us the taxi rank and said that the taxi ride should cost about Y10. As we were thanking him, the taxi rank descended in-swarm on us,

Gerry picked the first arrival and we put our bags into the car and then confirmed with him our destination and the price of Y10. He was most put out and claimed it would cost at least Y30. Jan used the tried and true method of threatening to take our bags out of the trunk before he relented and agreed to take us for Y10.

The bus station was at the other end of town, and going there we saw some of the harbor, but all-in-all it wasn’t far and pretty soon we were in front of the sales window booking an express bus to Hangzhou for 1 pm. That gave us the right to sit in the express bus waiting room, a very pleasant place by most bus station standards, and two hours to wait. As usual, Gerry volunteered to go off and explore and either bring back lunch or pick out a restaurant. As expected he brought back a nice lunch of fish and vegetables and rice and a couple of soft drinks to wash it down with. After we had eaten lunch, we sat down with our hotel guide to pick out a hotel in Hangzhou.

Given where we expected our bus to arrive and the bus for Huangshan to depart, we settled on the Yellow Dragon (Huang Lung) and pulled out our mobile phone to book a room. Once again, our CITS hotel guide proved accurate as far as price was concerned and in a mixture of Chinese and English we explained that we were coming by bus and would be there in the early evening. Over the phone we agreed a rate of Y400 a night, trying out our new idea: propose the price we want rather than asking the price. To our pleasure it worked and we determined to use the system often in the future.

The two hours went very quickly and pretty soon our bus was announced. After the semi-luxury of the waiting room, the bus itself was a disappointment. But it did the trick and anyway, as we knew, we would not be riding the bus the whole way, because for an hour at least we would be on a vehicular ferry and so free to walk around. The ferry ride was very pleasant and we found a nice spot on the top deck enjoying the warm breeze and watching the variety of small vessels that plied between the islands and the mainland.