16 | Bed & Breakfast News | Summer 2017
The next region we visited was Mogan Shan,
the Mogan mountains, (see above) – and
you could not imagine a more different
landscape to that of central Shanghai city.
‘Moganshan’ is all gentle green,
mist-covered hills with bamboo forests,
while downtown Shanghai is like
Manhattan on steroids.
We headed right up into the hills, past
a huge reservoir and a tea plantation,
to a small hamlet where one of the
village houses (some of which had been
abandoned years ago as rural people moved
to cities for work) had been converted
to a B&B charging some £200 a night.
What initially looked like bats were
fluttering around in the trees outside – but
quickly proved to be giant black and red
butterflies. Later, after dark, fireflies lit
up the paths through the bamboo forests
around our B&B with millions of tiny
moving bright green lights.
Again, the buildings had been gutted and
completely renovated and remodeled,
giving them a light, airy, very modernist
feel with lots of exposed wood, floor to
ceiling glass and ‘Grand Designs’ style
polished concrete floors.
The rooms can be booked separately or
the whole house together – but in practice
getting here would probably mean hiring
a car, as it is 3.5 hours from the nearest
airport (Pudong). That means it is in reality