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Catching a wave
By JAY J. STEMMER HANGZHOU, China -- "Who would like to see a tidal wave tomorrow?" our guide said.
What tidal wave? The guidebook I used said that Hangzhou was acclaimed for its beauty; there was no mention of a tidal wave. I had spent the last week in and around Shanghai, without a newspaper or CNN. Perhaps an island had blown up, creating a giant wave on its way to mainland China? Or there had been a cyclone? These illusions were shattered when the guide continued, "It only happens in two places, here and the Amazon River in Brazil. Tomorrow is the last day we can see it come up the river." Our guide then explained that this "tidal wave" occurred every year, for three days. I signed up to go see the tidal wave. The next day was overcast. We waited outside our bungalow, a crescent-shaped, one-story wooden building. Each room contained similar but unique pieces of what appeared to be antiques, expensive-looking desks, beds and dressers. Our compound, at the foot of Xi-zhao Hill, turned out to be an army post still used by senior state officials to entertain foreign dignitaries. During idle times, it's used as a hotel for foreigners with hard cash. That's us. The bus arrived at 8:30, and $24 later, we were on our way. All 33 seats were filled, and toward the end of the hour and 45-minute drive, our guide from the day before handed out box lunches. Our bus stopped with many others, parked in a field alongside a gravel road. Thousands of people seemed to be unloading and walking along the road. The first stunning sight (the second, actually -- the first was when I looked inside the box at the lunch) was a beautiful, six-story pagoda, about 400 feet away. Years ago, Mao Tse-tung had seen the tidal wave, and now I knew from where he had watched it. We followed our guide past officials, ticket-takers, guards, and stands selling fruit, drinks and souvenirs. We walked down aisles and crawled over chairs to our designated spot, a section of stands covered by an awning, about 50 feet from the front of the viewing area. The chairs were closely packed. The stands had a concrete floor and were stepped, so those in the back could see over those in front. I was 5 feet from the left edge of the stands, and the tidal wave was going to come from the left, from the direction of the pagoda. The riverbank was lined with guards. We were told that in the past, people had committed suicide by throwing themselves in front of the tidal wave. Some people reportedly had tried to surf the wave. Back to the day's first surprise, the box lunch. I took a second look inside the box and realized that during the bouncing around over the seats, the lunch's unidentifiable greasy meat has swiped over everything else: the bread, two hard-boiled eggs, a can of orange juice and a napkin. The can of juice could be saved, but the rest was a disaster. I put it under my seat. The thin gray lineThis type of tidal wave is called a tidal bore. It happens when a large, incoming tide is constrained by a gradually narrowing river channel or by a rise in the river bed, or both. A sizable rush of water results and moves upstream, against the downstream river current beneath it. This results in a wall of water that can move more than 13 miles per hour and continues upstream until reaching a falls or rapids too strong to overcome. The largest known tidal bore is 24.6-feet high on the Chien Tang Kiang River in Hangzhou. A low-throated "Ohhh" rippled through the crowd from left to right. All heads in front of me turned toward the pagoda. A light haze hung in the air, obscuring distant viewing. The far shore was a thin line of dark gray separating the gray of the water from the barely lighter gray of the sky. But I followed the turn of heads downstream and saw a faint gray line bisecting the horizon. I looked through the telephoto lens on my camera, but the auto-focus was having difficulty finding something to focus on. I turned the camera to the vertical position, and the lens locked on the thin gray line in the middle -- the approaching tidal wave. The haze extended downstream, and my view was grainy, but this was it. The line extended across the river and was growing in my viewfinder. The wave came even with the pagoda, and I could hear a deep rumble as the wave churned upstream, overpowering the downstream current. Suddenly, the 6-foot wave was in front of the stands, moving as fast as a man could run. No crash like a wave hitting the beach, just the churn of water sweeping over water. It swept by in a crescent shape. And then it was quiet, we were behind the sound, and the crowd was still. The water behind the wave showed turbulence but was quiet. It had not been 20 feet high, as I'd hoped, but in retrospect, it's just as well. I would have been too close to the shore for comfort. I don't know how far the wave continued, but I watched it blend into the gray of the upstream horizon. Then we followed others toward the pagoda, for a shortcut to the buses. -- Jay J. Stemmer is a freelance writer living in Glendale, Calif. If you goGetting there: Northwest, United, Air China, Japan Air Lines and All Nippon Airways serve China from the United States, mostly through Tokyo. China Eastern Airlines and Northwest service Shanghai from Tokyo. An airport in Hangzhou was built for then-President Nixon's visit in 1972. Your exit is best arranged with the official Chinese travel agency, CITS. The train station in Shanghai is clean and modern. However, trains seats are often reserved well in advance of departure, and little or no English is spoken at the station. Getting to the correct platform may be easier than finding the right train car or the proper seats. Again, it is best to use CITS; its guides are multilingual. The train ride to Hangzhou is five hours, and it's better to go in the daylight and enjoy the countryside. For more information: Visas are required to enter China. Contact the China National Tourist Office, 350 Fifth Ave. Suite 6413, New York, NY 10118; call 8(212) 760-8218; or visit www.cnto.org/main.htm on the Web. Staying there: For information on booking hotels, contact the China National Tourist Office at the address and number above. The Xi Zi Guest House (37 Nanshan Road, Hangzhou) is several miles from the town but right on West Lake, the main attraction. Twin rooms cost about $55, and suites range from about $110 to $430. A taxi to town is about $4. The Hangzhou Shangri-La Hotel is on the opposite side of the lake, the north side, with rates of $70 for a double. The town, bordering the east side of the lake, has any number of hotels with rates as low as $20.
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From the Times Travel page
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