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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
In under three hours, China’s bullet trains whisk travelers back
1,200 years in time
By Tracy You, CNN
Updated:
8:35 AM EDT, Wed August 27, 2025
Source: CNN
Visiting Shanghai is an exhilarating experience.
This financial hub of 25 million was seemingly made for
skyscraper-ogling, fashion-finding and dumpling-sampling. Its metro
system is clean and efficient, making zipping around town — or to the
next city — incredibly easy.
But at some point, urban fatigue kicks in, a sign it’s time to
disappear into the misty mountains so often captured in traditional
Chinese ink paintings.
Thanks to China’s huge network of high-speed railways — the on the
planet — the calming countryside is never far away.
Take Wuyuan, a rural county in the landlocked province of Jiangxi in
eastern China. Less than three hours away from Shanghai by bullet
train, it’s filled with centuries-old villages, where white walls and
tiled roofs beckon, and hearty meals made with ingredients straight off
the farms are the norm.
This juxtaposition offers a fascinating opportunity to soak in both
China’s ultra-modern present and its famed past on a short trip.
But, we know traveling in China can be intimidating for . Here’s a
quick sample itinerary for those looking for inspiration to take their
own high-speed journey into the past, along with advice on how to book
train tickets.
Shanghai stop 1: The Stage
Skyscraper admiration isn’t a new thing in Shanghai, but there’s a
new angle to do it from. The city’s latest observation deck, a former
helipad, provides a perfect spot for snapping a panoramic photo of this
futuristic landscape.
Sitting on top of the tallest building on the west side of the city’s
Huangpu River, The Stage — at 1,050 feet (320 meters) high —
provides a front-row seat to Shanghai’s gigantic financial district
across the river.
Thanks to a bend of the Huangpu, it also gives a bird’s-eye view over
the famous colonial buildings on the same side of the river. Toy-sized
barges chugging down the Huangpu carry various goods, from coal to
sand, a reminder that China never stops building.
The best time to inhale the 360-degree vistas is the evening, when one
can get a sunset combo ticket that includes a drink.
The Stage entrance is on level B1 of Shanghai’s Magnolia Building at
No 501 Dong Daming Road, Hongkou District; RMB240 ($33) per person,
RMB288 ($40) for a sunset combo ticket.
Stop 2: The Bund
The granddaddy of all Shanghai attractions, the Bund is a stretch of
the Huangpu River’s west bank featuring 52 historic buildings dating
back to the early 20th century that were built by banks, trading
companies and tycoons from all over the world. The kaleidoscope of
styles ranges from Neo-classical to Gothic.
The grandest of them all is the former HSBC building, now the
headquarters of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Looking to
exchange some cash? The ground-floor banking hall features a
Greek-style series of murals that dodged the hammers of the Cultural
Revolution after a Shanghai architect allegedly had it painted over to
protect it.
The Bund is busy day and night, but the early morning offers a rare
window of peace enjoyed by just a few pedestrians and people taking
exercise.
Nearest metro stop: East Nanjing Road, accessible from lines 2 and 10.
Stop 3: The old town
The old town refers to the original Shanghai, a slice of the city that
thrived before the arrival of British settlers in the 1850s. It’s an
area roughly half the size of New York’s Central Park and was once
surrounded by a long-demolished city wall.
Today, it’s a popular destination for both Chinese and international
visitors during the Lunar New Year, thanks to its dazzling lantern
show. The rest of the year, it offers a maze of heavily restored old
buildings for visitors to get lost in.
Bear in mind, this is a highly commercialized area: almost all
traditional residential alleyways have been bulldozed. But the core of
the old town around the Yuyuan Garden is worth visiting. The Jiuqu, or
nine-turn bridge, zigzags across a small pond inhabited by koi fish,
passing the city’s oldest tea house, Huxinting.
On one side of the bridge is the Lu Bo Lang restaurant, where former US
president dined during his visit to Shanghai in 1998. On the other is
the , where the city’s famed soup dumplings, or xiaolong mantou,
attract long queues.
Nearest metro stop: Yuyuan Garden on lines 10 and 14.
Stop 4: Xuhui riverside promenade
This is Shanghai’s answer to London’s South Bank. Locals go there
to have an afternoon stroll, meet their friends, do some cycling or
simply kill time. Once the city’s industrial backbone, this part of
the riverside, stretching around five miles, has a different pace to
the glitzy Bund: things move much slower here.
The former Shanghai Cement Factory now houses a large art space and a
mix of shops, restaurants and cafes. West Bund Art & Design, a separate
center nearby, has a long-term partnership with the Centre Pompidou in
Paris and organizes some of the country’s best Chinese contemporary
exhibitions.
Skateboarders congregate in the Riverside Skateboard Park to challenge
railings and flights of steps. Pets love it here, too: there is a
dedicated park that allows dogs to run off-leash — a rare exception
to the city’s strict pet-keeping rules.
The best metro stops to get off are Yunjin Road or Longyao Road station
on metro line 11, and Middle Longhua Road on metro lines 7 and 12.
Wuyuan stop 1: Yan village
Wuyuan county, in landlocked Jiangxi province, is the China you see in
traditional paintings: rolling fields, winding streams and small
villages wedged between verdant mountains.
It only takes two hours and 44 minutes to get there from Shanghai on
the fastest bullet train, but their vibes are hundreds of years apart.
With a history of 1,200 years, Wuyuan is famous for two things:
bright-yellow rapeseed flowers, which blossom every March; and the big
family homes built by ancient Huizhou merchants, who amassed their
fortunes between the 15th and 18th centuries by selling salt, tea and
wood.
A 20-minute taxi ride away from the Wuyuan train station lies the
village of Yan (延村), a typical Huizhou hamlet dating back some 800
years. Tourists need to pay a small fee to get in, but don’t be
deceived. Yan is a purely residential village inhabited by farmers.
Most of them have the same surname, Jin — a reflection of the clan
culture that still runs strong in rural China.
Nearby village Sixi offers the same tranquil feeling and is 20 minutes
away on foot via a field-side footpath.
Cost: RMB55 ($8) to enter the villages of Yan and Sixi.
Stop 2: Skywells Hotel
Bought and renovated by a British expat and his Chinese wife, this
three-storey boutique hotel in the village of Yan is an attraction on
its own. Dating back nearly 300 years, the house was built in classic
Huizhou style: tall and thick walls, with tiny windows — features
designed to shut out the bandits when the men in the family were
traveling to trade.
The centerpiece of the hotel is its interior courtyards, known as
skywells, another feature of Huizhou-style architecture. These open-air
spaces provide natural light and ventilation, helping the house stay
cool. It also enables rainwater, a symbol of fortune, to be collected
inside the house.
This 14-room hotel is managed by a village resident who cooks hearty
local dishes for guests using vegetables straight from her family’s
plot. She is a well of knowledge of where to go and what to do, and
makes a mean gin and tonic.
, Yan village, Wuyuan, China.
Stop 3: Huangling
Situated on the side of a mountain, this 600-year-old village was
initially established by the Cao clan, who moved there from the north
to hide from war.
But Huangling grew dilapidated and was partly abandoned until 2009,
when a tourism company moved residents to the foot of the mountain and
turned the village into a bit of a historic theme park.
Tourists go up the village by cable car, which provides a panoramic
view of the terraced fields cascading down into a valley. Its small
streets are packed with restaurants, souvenir shops and tea houses. But
most people come to see the colorful vegetables dried in round baskets
on balconies, a tradition passed down by generations of
mountain-dwellers to preserve their harvests.
In need of some extra thrills? Huangling has not one but two
glass-bottomed bridges suspended between nearby mountains.
RMB145 ($20) to enter the village via cable car.
Optional city stopover: Suzhou or Hangzhou
Praised by ancient poets as “heavens on earth,” Suzhou and Hangzhou
were highly favored by Chinese emperor Qianlong, who journeyed down
from Beijing six times in his life in the 18th century to enjoy their
scenery and sample their food.
Today’s Chinese travelers still flock there to do the same, albeit by
bullet train (or their electric cars). The two cities can be reached by
high-speed rail on the Wuyuan to Shanghai route, although not every
train stops at both.
A bit more than two hours by train from Wuyuan, Hangzhou is a bustling
provincial capital immortalized by its lake, pagodas and rolling green
tea fields. This is also China’s e-commerce hub: Alibaba’s
co-founder Jack Ma is from the city and the company is headquartered
there.
Forty minutes from Hangzhou or half an hour from Shanghai by train,
Suzhou has some of China’s most beautiful ancient gardens. Built by
the local literati hundreds of years ago, they have ponds, pavilions,
dreamy willow trees, together with “artificial mountains” made with
rocks hauled up from the nearby Taihu Lake.
How to buy train tickets in China
International travelers can buy train tickets at the train station with
their passports, or book them via various apps. “Railway 12306” is
China’s official railway ticketing app and has an English-language
version.
All train tickets in China are linked to the ticket holders’ ID cards
or passports, so app users will need to submit a photo of their
documents while setting up an account on 12306. That will allow them to
enter the train station by scanning the same documents.
The app also has a guide containing practical information for
international travelers, such as how to pay for items and where to get
a SIM card.
A bullet-train ticket for the Shanghai-Wuyuan route costs between
RMB193 and 292 ($27-41) one way.
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