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Meandering down the Mighty Yangtze
Entry 5 of 73 | show all | print this entry |
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Got up at 6am in the morning to get the bus to Chongqing, along with two other couples, and catch the boat down the Yangtze that evening. When we arrived in Chongqing we noticed that it was very different from any other Chinese city we had visited. It was full to the brim with high rise flats and there were hundreds more under construction. We were told that these flats are being built to house some of the millions of people that would be displaced due to the rising water level of the Yangtze after the completion of the Three Gorges Dam. A bit disturbing to say the least...
On arriving in Chonqing, we were then dropped at a hotel and brought up to the 4th floor to the 'tourist office' to pay for the cruise. Needing the toilet, after a 5 hour bus journey from Chengdu, we were shown down a corridor. The urge to go suddenly disappeared when I saw it, and we've seen some pretty grim ones since arriving in China. It made the jacks from Trainspotting look like a palace!! There was crap everywhere and it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. There were no doors on the cubicles and some chicks were just squatting away, no problem, didn't bat an eyelid when I walked in. I managed to pick my jaw up off the ground and beelined it outa there pretty fast! Stephen went into the mens and told me it was much worse, I can't imagine..... and was swiftly followed in by a chef from the hotel kitchen (3 star hotel) to wash pots and pans!! Needless to say we didn't eat at the restaurant there.
We went on a tour of the city for a few hours and, well, there's not much to it really. It's the main port for the river cruise so that's what brings in the business. Our cruise (along with the other 2 couples) was booked onto a Chinese ferry boat and not a dedicated tourist one like we were told, which turned out to be the best thing in the end. We all went 1st class because it's the only private room you can get. But the 1st class cabins were really manky and the walls and floor were covered in stains, not to mention the nasty crud waiting for us in the 'sanitized' toilet! We went to the restaurant and got served the best sweet and sour in China I reckon! Then we joined the locals in the bar where we all mostly smiled and nodded due to the language barrier!
We did the Ghost city of Fengdu tour which was a glorified theme park with a ghost train and all! Was entertaining but not what we expected and they don't tell you that in the Lonely Planet! The view of the river from the ghost city was beautiful and on the way back to the boat we stopped at a small market where they were churning out local delicacies like pig's snout, intestines, hooves and heart, mmmmmm. We stuck to the vegetarian noodles! The three little Gorges tour was fantastic except some guys on the boat kept taking photos of us, then looking up into space as if nothing happened! In the end the Aussie girl, Rochelle, went over to one of them and sat on his lap, that got everyone snapping away! We docked for the night in Wushan and headed into the city with the others for a look around and some dinner. Found a cool little restaurant that sells hotpot and met a crazy Chinese guy who kept declaring his love for us all and pouring us beer shots!
Cruising down the river there are markers along the river banks to show where the water level will rise to after the Dam's completion. There's even a marker painted on the side of some poor farmer's house, taking the piss a bit no?! The mood turns a bit sombre when you realise how unlucky these poor people are to be up-rooted from the homes and farms their families have occupied for generations, and shoved into a cramped flat with no way to make an income and no land to farm, it sucks. The next morning we went to see the Three Gorges Dam project. It' no doubt very impressive, and huge. After that we boarded a bus at the Dam to get our connection in Yichang to Wuhan with yet another crazy bus driver who had a race with a black sedan for the whole hour we were on the bus, flailing around the road making everyone stare at each other goggle-eyed, we're gonna have permanent goggle eyes at the end of this trip. Didn't help that most of the road was cliffside......
Arrived in Wuhan, alive, at about midnight and flew to Shanghai the next day and that's where we are now. Going to take it easy for today and go for a stroll along the Bund and have a look around. Seems like a pretty cool city so far anyway, keep ya posted :) More thumbnails ...
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