In a country whose must-see sites often have a whiff of the overrated, this surely counts as a real spectacle.
The Qiantang River bore (Qiántáng Jiāng dàcháo, 钱塘江大潮) occurs at least twice a month (on the highest tides, at the beginning and in the middle of each lunar month), but it's on the 18th day of the eighth lunar month around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhōngqiū Jié, 中秋節) that it truly earns its local nickname, the "Silver Dragon" (Yín Lóng, 银龙).
As the tide approaches its annual peak, the narrowing of the river as it enters Hangzhou Bay (Hángzhōu Wān, 杭州湾) causes a rolling wave of water to rush upstream, reaching heights of between 1.5 and 4.5 m (4.92 and 14.76 ft)—sometimes even as high as 9 m (29.53 ft)—and speeds in excess of 40 km/hr (24.85 mi/hr), making it the largest tidal bore in the world.
Chinese legends describe the sound made by the water thundering past as akin to "the hooves of a thousand horses," but not until 2008 was anyone given permission to saddle up: the privilege falling to a pair of American surfers, who were permitted to ride the bore for a short distance, despite the obvious dangers. For everyone else it's a spectator sport, but no less impressive for it. Tide watchers should be careful to stay within marked areas; every year people trying to get "just a little closer" get swept up by the Qiantang River.
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