A Spontaneous Trip to Qiandaohu

We didn’t plan anything for the Chinese New Year holiday, we figured we would be lazy. But then on Wednesday morning we made the spontaneous decision to head to Qiandaohu for two nights. Within ten minutes the hotel room and high speed train tickets were booked, and we were off later that afternoon.

Qiandaohu was created in 1959 when the completion of the Xin’anjiang Dam formed a reservoir that turned mountaintops into little islands. Around 1,000 islands in fact, hence the name 千岛湖, meaning “Thousand Island Lake”. It’s just a 2-hour train ride from Shanghai, but a very nice change of pace from the city.

For the three years of COVID, we had no choice but to travel within the borders of China, and we’ve been prioritising overseas travel since then. So this was a nice and simple destination to dip our toes back in: our first time traveling within China since July 2022, and our first time on a Chinese high-speed train since July 2021. We’re already on the way back home to Shanghai, where the laziness can resume once again.


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