I travelled to Hangzhou, capital of the 12th-century Southern Song dynasty, in the only way one should contemplate such a journey these days: at 300km/h in the capacious seat of a sleek-nosed bullet train. I arrived in just 57 minutes from Shanghai, about 110 miles to the north. A few months earlier the same journey would have taken just 45 minutes. But the top speed of trains across China has been cut after a fatal accident on another line last year.
That has rubbed some of the shine off China’s high-speed enterprise. But the brilliant white train to Hangzhou, even shorn of its top speed, remains an impressive metaphor for the country’s extraordinary economic propulsion. It is certainly a contrast, worthy of the worst copywriter’s cliché, with the picturesque city of mist-enfolded lakes and hilltop Buddhist temples that awaits.
The fast train from Shanghai has made Hangzhou a much more accessible destination for foreign tourists. Chinese have been coming here for centuries but foreigners are now arriving at this city in greater numbers. West Lake, with its 10 classical views that have inspired poets and painters down the ages, was last year made a Unesco World Heritage Site.