Tongli

Tuesday 10 September - We start the day with breakfast in a coffee shop in Suzhou, then catch a bus to Tongli, a nearby city known for its canals. It was at one time a transportation hub when silk went by water both inland and overseas. Its preserved areas are now a tourist attraction. After the day here, it was back to Suzhou to catch an overnight train to Guangshan and the Yellow Mountains.

Here are today's offerings

some of the selection for breakfast

Ursula and Olivier enjoying fish for lunch...

...along the canal at one of these restaurants...

where we also watched the sightseeing boats...

...and the Chinese equivalent of gondaliers.

We also watched these fishing cormorants.
Their owner set three of them loose to go get some fish.

When they come back, he literally makes them cough up.
Look carefully beneath his right hand. That's a fish being disgorged.
The cormorant's eye can just be seen to the right of his hand and beneath the
bamboo pole that is in front of his wrist.

And then a garden just off the main square.