Weekend Trip: Wuzhen

Last weekend I took a trip to Wuzhen in Zhejiang Province. This is about 80 miles southwest of Shanghai and is a city along the Grand Canal in China.

Like many places of interest in China, the government has taken the opportunity to make money on it. This use to be just a sleepy village along the canal, but now the government has renovated it into a tourist destination. The old houses along the canal has renovated interiors while leaving the exterior in its original state. It is hard to tell how much of the town is the original structure and how much is actually replicas of the original architecture.

The entry fee for this "park" or village is 120RMB ($17) and the renovated hotels cost 268RMB ($38) for single room, 468RMB for a double($67) and 528RMB for a triple($76). Once you enter the village, if you wish to stay overnight, you must stay in one of these hotels. These prices might sound reasonable in US dollar terms, but for the locals it is a large sum of money. The people who can afford to stay in these hotels tend to be white collar types.

The scenery in this village is quite nice, especially at night when the banks along the canal are illuminated.

Overall, this town is a quite relaxing place to spend a quiet weekend.