Tai-Hu 太湖

Before I start my journey to XiShan 西山, a town located on the biggest island of Tai-Hu 太湖, let me first have a short introduction of Tai-Hu, one of the largest freshwater lakes in China.

Covering an area of over 2,250 square km (about the size of 300,000 times of a football field), Tai (great)-hu (lake) is the third largest freshwater lake of China, below in size of Lakes Poyang and Dongting, situated about 100 km from the east coast of the Chang Jiang delta 长江三角洲 in central China. The whole lake is under the administration of Jiangsu Province 江苏省, though its southern coast belongs to the neighboring province, Zhejiang 浙江. It is located in the densely populated fertile plain of the delta known for its complicated network of small lakes, ponds, streams and man-made canals, including the Grand Canal 京杭大运河 built in the 7th century to connect Beijing 北京 with Hangzhou 杭州 in Zhejiang. The inflowing water comes mainly from mountains to the west and southwest of the lake, while the draining rivers start mostly from the east coast of the lake. Several rivers and channels connect the lake with Chang Jiang 长江, but the water flux is controlled by dams to maintain the lake water level within a range of fluctuation of 2-3 meters. The lake is famous for its abundant production of fishes and crabs, and the aquaculture farms on the coast that apply skillful techniques. In addition to supporting heavy boat traffic, Tai-Hu provides some of the best known water- side scenery in China for domestic and foreign sightseeing visitors.

After taking the 32路‘公交’(public bus) from 海关大楼 (my SuZhou 苏州 hostel), I need to travel on the 91路‘公交’ for another full hour from 木渎，another SuZhou famous tourist spot to my final destination - XiShan. During the journey, the bus have to drove over 3 bridges of a few kilometers long each in order to cross Tai-Hu. I wanted to take some photos of the bridges and the lake but the bus was too crowded even for me to take out my digicam.

Here I am, standing on the hill top of ShiGong Hill 石公山, one the many tourist spots on XiShan island. I even can't see the other end of the lake after standing so high on the hill, imagine how big the lake is.

This is taken on the other side of the hill. There are about 90 islands on Tai-Hu and I am sitting on the hill top of ShiGongShan in XiShan, located on the largest island on Tai-Hu. For your information, Tai-Hu is actually the important water source for large cities such as Shanghai City, Wuxi City, Suzhou City (Jiangsu province) and Huzhou City (Zhejiang province), and the residents living diffusely around the lake. The water of about 1,050 million cube meters has been supplied to several million residents throughout a year as municipal water. This is how important Tai-Hu to the people around here.

Next destination - 'Secret Island' 神秘岛, a tiny island situated not far away from XiShan island. I don't really know why it is named 'secret island', all I have been told is that there are some peacocks on the island and so some people called it as 'KongQue' Island 孔雀岛。

But to my dispointment, instead of peacocks, I saw a few swans and a dead peacock (how can it be called 'KongQueDao'). Luckily the scenery and the breeze there is quite interesting, so it is still worth a trip.

A few don't know is swans or ducks swimming happily in Tai-Hu.

Behind me is the 'Secret Island' 神秘岛, a very small island. Can walk around the island along the wooden bridge built surrounded it in less than 30 minutes. There are a few 'wind-generators' on the island. I think it is to generate electric power for the usage on the island. The scene looks a bit like Netherland. Hehe...

After spending sometime walking and looking through the market in XiShan, which is famous with its pearl and local fruits, it is time to say goodbye to this magnificent lake of China.