A combination of Liverpool and 1920s Manhattan, the most impressive street in Shanghai has always been the Bund , since 1949 known officially as Zhongshan Lu, but better known among locals as Wai Tan (literally "outside beach"). During Shanghai's riotous heyday it was not only the city's financial centre but also a hectic working harbour, where anything from tiny sailing junks to ocean-going freighters unloaded under the watch of British - and later American and Japanese - warships. Everything arrived here, from silk and tea to heavy industrial machinery, and amidst it all were the wealthy foreigners disembarking to pick their way to one of the grand hotels through crowds of beggars, hawkers, black marketeers, shoeshine boys and overladen coolies. Named after an old Anglo-Indian term, bunding (the embanking of a muddy foreshore), the Bund was in every sense old Shanghai's commercial heart, with the river on one side, the offices of the leading banks and trading houses on the other. In recent years, the Bund has taken on an entirely new aspect, with the construction, just across the river, of the dramatically conspicuous Oriental Pearl TV Tower, so high its antenna is often shrouded in mist.

 

The northern end of the Bund starts from the confluence of the Huangpu and the Suzhou Creek, by Waibaidu Bridge , and runs south for 1.5km to Jinling Dong Lu, formerly Rue du Consulat. At the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 the Waibaidu Bridge formed a no-man's-land between the Japanese-occupied areas north of Suzhou Creek and the International Settlement - it was guarded at each end by Japanese and British sentries. Today, though most ships dock farther downstream, the waterways are still well-used thoroughfares, and the Bund itself is a popular place for locals to stroll after dinner or to exercise in the early morning, while tourists from all over China patrol the waterfront taking photos of each other against the backdrop of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The first building south of the bridge was one of the cornerstones of British interests in old Shanghai, the former British Consulate , once ostentatiously guarded by magnificent Sikh soldiers. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that although the British are long gone, the blue building just to the northeast of here across the Suzhou Creek still retains its original function as the Russian Consulate .

Right on the corner of the two waterways, Huangpu Park was another British creation, the British Public Gardens, established on a patch of land formed by chance when mud and silt gathered around a wrecked ship. Here, too, there were Sikh troops, ready to enforce the rules which forbade dogs or Chinese from entering (unless they were servants accompanying their employer). After protests the regulations were relaxed to admit "Well-dressed" Chinese, who had to apply for a special entry permit. These days the park (daily 5am-9pm; free) contains a stone monument to the "Heroes of the People", and is also a popular spot for citizens practising tai ji early in the morning; but it's best simply for the promenade which commands the junction of the two rivers. Underneath the monument lurks a small museum (9am-4pm; free) with an informative presentation on Shanghai's history that is worth a few minutes of your time.

Walking down the Bund you'll pass a succession of grandiose Neoclassical edifices, once built to house the great foreign enterprises. Jardine Matheson, founded by William Jardine - the man who did more than any other individual to precipitate the Opium Wars and open Shanghai up to foreign trade - was the first foreign concern to buy land in Shanghai. Their former base (they lost all of their holdings in China after 1949), just north of the Peace Hotel, is now occupied by the China Textiles Export Corporation.

Just south of here, straddling the eastern end of Nanjing Lu, is one of the most famous hotels in China, the Peace Hotel , formerly the Cathay Hotel. The main building (on the north side of Nanjing Lu) is a relic of another great trading house, Sassoon's , and was originally known as Sassoon House. Like Jardine's, the Sassoon business empire was built on opium trading, but by the early years of this century the family fortune had mostly been sunk into Shanghai real estate, including the Cathay, which was the place to be seen in prewar Shanghai. It offered guests a private plumbing system fed by a spring on the outskirts of town, marble baths with silver taps and vitreous china lavatories imported from Britain. Noel Coward is supposed to have been staying here when he completed Private Lives. Sassoon lived long enough to see his hotel virtually destroyed by the Japanese, including his rooftop private apartment, with 360° views and dark oak panelling, (it has recently been restored), but also long enough to get most of his money away to the Bahamas. The Peace today still caters to the rich, but it's well worth a visit for the bar with its legendary jazz band, and for a walk around the lobby and upper floors to take in the faded Art-Deco elegance. The smaller wing on the south side of Nanjing Lu was originally the Palace Hotel, built around 1906; its first floor now holds the Western-style Peace Café, a much used city-centre rendezvous.

Next door to the Peace, at 19 Zhongshan Lu (the Bund), the Bank of China was designed in the 1920s by Shanghai architectural firm Palmer & Turner, who brought in a Chinese architect to make the building "more Chinese" after construction was complete. The architect placed a Chinese roof onto the Art-Deco edifice, creating an odd juxtaposition of styles that delights to this day.

Carrying on down the Bund, the Customs House is one of the few buildings to have retained its original function, though its distinctive clock tower was adapted to chime The East is Red at six o'clock every morning and evening during the Cultural Revolution (the original clockwork has since been restored). The clock tower was modelled after Big Ben, and after its completion in 1927, local legend had it that the chimes which struck each fifteen minutes confused the God of Fire. Believing the chimes were a firebell, the god decided Shanghai was suffering from too many conflagrations, and refused to send any more. You can step into the downstairs lobby for a peek at some faded mosaics of maritime motifs on the ceiling.

Right next to this, and also with an easily recognizable domed roofline, the former headquarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (built in 1921) is one of the most imposing of all the Bund facades. Each wall of the marble octagonal entrance originally boasted a mural depicting the Bank's eight primary locations: Bangkok, Calcutta, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo. After 1949 it was taken over and turned into the local Shanghai government headquarters, until 1995 when they relocated to a site off Renmin Park in the centre of the city. This has opened the way for negotiations leading to the probable reoccupation of the building by its original owners, who would in all likelihood re-install the bronze lions - noses and paws rubbed gold by superstitious locals - that guarded the bank until 1966 (they are currently hibernating in the basement of the Shanghai Museum).

At the corner of the Bund and Yan'an Dong Lu you'll come to the Tung Feng Hotel (at press time undergoing renovations), which until 1949 was home to a bastion of white male chauvinism, the Shanghai Club. There's still a strong feel here of the Shanghai of the 1920s and 1930s. The club's showpiece, the 33-metre mahogany Long Bar, where the wealthiest of the city's merchants and their European guests propped themselves at cocktail hour, is unfortunately no more, although the second floor Seaman's Club, founded in the early 1900s, still functions as a meeting place for sailors.

Several blocks south of the old Tung Feng stands the site of the Cornucopia Tea House , today a huddle of nondescript office buildings. The most important associate of the Green Gang (the Shanghai Mafia), French Concession detective squad head Huang Jinrong, nicknamed "Pockmarked Huang", often held "court" here in the 1920s and 1930s. Huang represented the key link between the police force and the underworld, both of which he often manipulated to strengthen his considerable business interests, most of which was in the illegal opium trade. Huang thought of himself as a Robin Hood-like figure, doling out justice and money to those whom he felt deserved it most. At this tea house, he would often receive payments for fixes or favours, and decide whether felons should be handed over to the International police squad.