Hanging on to the past

Photo By Matt Hodges / For China Daily

The city keeps such strict watch on the village/resort that when a 200-year-old tree recently gave up the ghost, the Thai GM had to call the botanical authority to come and photograph it before he got the chainsaw out.

Spring is the perfect time to visit Hangzhou. Many nouveau riche motorists from Shanghai and cities in Zhejiang come to pray for prosperity at Lingyin Temple (Temple of Soul's Retreat). Others prefer the three-hour hike up the north point behind the 14-hectare resort. Be warned that the crowds at the temples can get maddeningly thick.

Amanfayun, which opened in 2010, retains an olde-worlde flavor by having guards patrol at night with oil lamps amid the stone pathways, dense foliage and forests of camphor and bamboo. A bamboo massage is a must here: small stones inside the bamboo sound like waves crashing gently over you as you look out the second-storey windows at trees.

The spa also offers exfoliation using green tea and ginger tea, and a facial using green tea powder. Spa Manager Waruni from Thailand's Hat Yai knows her stuff, so don't freak out at her blue-colored Butterfly Pea Tea. It is good for tired eyes.

But the centerpiece of the resort is Fayun House, a charming two-storey lounge for guests that hosts calligraphy and other artisanal classes by master monks downstairs, and a new cigar bar upstairs. Exotic contemporary art collections of Hangzhou Surrealism add to the cultural mix of old and new.

During the day, monks and tourists freely use the resort's central thoroughfare. The former use it to pass from Yongfu Temple to the Buddhist academy on the other side; tourists snap pics and wonder at this living tableau of a bygone era.