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Shanghai excursion Putuoshan island
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My wife and I took a trip to Putuoshan from Shanghai this week Nov. 2005. Somewhat difficult. We wanted to travel from Ningbo via Hangzhou to the island... our travel book said we should leave from Ningbo. From Ningbo train station we had a taxi find us the ferry terminal and from there we bought tickets to Putuoshan island (120 yen). We then boarded a cheap but dirty bus for about 1hour ride then transfered to a ferry for a one hour ride to island. The island was nice and holy, but not necessarily worth the trouble/hassle of travel. We already had a return ferry that was on a high speed boat direct to Shanghai (4hour trip leaving at 12:30pm), however there was a slight wind and the boat was cancelled. Luckily we got our money back while on the island and instead took a 15 minute ferry back to mainland. From there we went into the bus station immediately at the ferry stop and had to take a 6hour bus ride back to shanghai... after a 4hour wait at the bus stop. We arrived in Shanghai at 11pm exhausted.
Putuoshan is a very small island, but you do need to take frequent buses from sight to sight. The sights are rather plain, but very important to devout worshippers. It seemed excessive to pay 5-10 yen for each bus ride, and another 10-40 yen for each temple, since we had already paid the admission fee of 110 yen each to enter Putuoshan island.
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1.
May 17, 2007 08:16 Reply
GKOEHN said:
I recommend Putuoshan Island as a pleasant change from the big city of Shanghai. The landscape is lovely and the temples have been beautifully renovated. However, the atmosphere is more that of a tourist resort than a Buddhist retreat with a living tradition.
Reasonably fit hikers can walk the whole island in a few hours without much trouble. Avoid summer weekends, when crowds arrive and prices soar. For cheaper accommodation, skip the touts and stay in a guesthouse for 100-200 Yuan. Try the locally grown green tea. Speaking a little Mandarin helps enormously if you don't have a Chinese friend.
2.
Nov 17, 2005 09:26 Reply
JABAROOTOO said:
Very useful advice. It would seem there are many such places around the country, while worthwhile for believers to visit they just one of thousands country wide that are often similar and oftne not worth the effort or the expence to visit.
Thanks