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Eva, Sue and I took a day trip to ChongMing Island, which is within the Shanghai District City Limits. The island is about 100 Kms. long and rests in the mouth of the Yangtze River. You can see main highway on the map photo - the red dotted line - that leads from the Pudong area near the airport, to and across the island and then across the water on the North side, into Jiangsu Province. It used to be necessary to take a boat to the island, but the city has recently completed a tunnel and bridge route, making the passage quicker and more convenient. The ferry boat voyage used to take about 2 hours, but now the trip from downtown (more or less) Shanghai to the island is only about 1 hour. Leaving the Shanghai mainland, we enter a 15-Km. tunnel that takes us to an intermediate island where the tunnel surfaces. We then cross the small island and take a sea bridge to ChongMing. Both the undersea tunnel and the sea bridge, at about 15 Kms. long each, are the longest of their kind in the world. Another bridge on the North end of the highway makes an easy passage to Jiansu, on the way to Nanjing. One striking thing was that though the settled parts of the island seem a bit messy, the local population certainly seemed well-off. The houses we saw were all villas - single family dwellings - and of considerable size. The local community is largely vegetable and fruit farming for the Shanghai market, and the farmers must be doing quite well at it. We didn't have time to tour the whole island but did go to the forest park and the wetlands, both of which would be more attractive in the summer or early autumn - which means another trip. The wetlands particularly were mostly devoid of life at the time we were there, but will be full of birds, waterfowl and water creatures during the summer. The island seems to have enough entertainment facilities. Horses are available for riding, there are fast go-carts, some carnival rides, various rental boats and water sports, and many other things. Bicycle rentals are available, though that would be suitable for only short distances. The island is too large for bikes, but motor scooters would be ideal. There is also a large obstacle-course type playground as you'll be able to see from the photos. We found an excellent restaurant in the town, but there seemed to be only snacks available at the Forest Park though that may change as the island develops. |
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I have posted three pages of photos. You can access them here:
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