China is a “different country” every few years – even back in 1989 it was already very different from my previous visit in 1978 but some aspects had not yet changed – in particular the road system was still very poor. We had seen the hints of things to come in the form of motorway construction but, for anyone wanting to get from Suzhou to Hangzhou the 12 hour overnight boat journey along the Grand Canal was still a reasonable way to go. Today (2014) the motorway journey takes around 2 hours to cover the c 170kms and only tourists would want to take the canal route – which does indeed still seem to be available!

We had already seen the teeming life of the canal during our cycle tours around Suzhou and it was great to get in amongst it all on a boat. This was packed with passengers and we had to grab a couple of bunks from the hundreds on a lower deck. The overnight schedule meant that a lot of the trip was in the dark but I remember well the evening and morning views. My attached photo, scanned from a diapositive, captures well the almost continuous “traffic jam” of cargo boats, often in the form of great “snakes” of barges loaded to the gunwales with bricks, gravel, coal etc and sacks of unknown contents! It appears that China’s investment in road and rail across the intervening years has in no way reduced the use of the canal as an important means of transporting bulk goods. If you are in the area and have an overnight to “spare” it could still be an interesting journey as an alternative to yet another motorway trip!