From the New to the Old

  Chongqing, China
Saturday, January 19, 2008

Day Eight - hours before the launching pad
I luxuriated in another riverside jaunt before turning in. I was wrong - the Chongqing lights do go out at around ten or eleven.Left aligned photo tag:

Chonging, the lights do go out

As it straddles between the rivers -  the Yangtze and Jialing, and covers the land at a tight bend, Chongqing does have the feel of Manhattan about it; all the towers and the New York building built in the style of the Chrysler, looking conspicuous above the rest, gave you its feel. Not to mention the yellow cabs. Is this what they're trying to create?Left aligned photo tag:

More bright lights, Chongqing.

I had it all to play for next morning. I wasn't scheduled to leave Chongqing until about 6 or 7 in the evening, so what's to be done?
I woke up to the freezing cold and had breakfast, snatching and gulping down a few bowls of porridge and the steamed bread, then went and had the shower in the public toilets. Settling down in the foyer, I immediately got hooked on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I knew it was a good story but had never got round to reading it. After about the third chapter, a young female receptionist came over and asserted I looked bored, and had many hours to wait for being sent to the launching bay to board the Three Gorges river trip to Yichang.
Why didn't I go out and do some exploring? What parts of Chongqing hadn't I, as yet, seen? I was quite content to go on reading Orwell, but eventually caved in and took up her recommendation. She said, I should pay a visit to Si Qi Ko - Right aligned photo tag:

Entrance, Si Qi Ko

China as it was, or China old style, and taste some delicious oily delectation. "Just try it. You don't need to buy it." She told me which buses to get, and without much hassle, except for the thwarted traffic, I made it in about an hour.
Before I continue further, she gave me bits of other info which she should have done when I checked in. Chinese do tend to work back to front.
Si Qi Ko, really, was just another tourist front, but has some interesting atmosphere, is lively, and is sadly being caved in by biggg development; tower blocks being constructed amidst little hills everywhere. Monstrous carbuncles permitted by those encouraging big business while simultaneously have not time for old shabby quarters like Si Qi Ko except to encourage tourism, as another ploy for making business.
Narrow cobbled alleyways, Left aligned photo tag:

Narrow alleyway, Si Qi Ko

rickety buildings, moss-strewn stone steps worn down with the ages of footsteps, do exist, Left aligned photo tag:

Staiway, old and treaded

but they're hopelessly outnumbered. Inhabitants here still wash their clothes by hand, dry them from balconies in the fresh air, and go on gossiping, disagreeing with neighbors, and peddle the usual.
The main area was quite crowded; Right aligned photo tag:

Throngs of Tourists

throngs of day-trippers, the odd foreigner, proprietors of souvenir shops. I took a few pictures of a couple of guys bashing and flattening nuts and treacle to make a hardened oblong biscuit, like nut brittle.Left aligned photo tag:

Guys flattening biscuit mixture

I felt 12 yuan for a small bag full was a bit of a rip off.
Another 'open' shop was selling Mao memorabilia - exclusively so - from Little Red Books, to pendants, medals, model busts; and to make everything exclusively complete, a DVD was being shown of the Great Leader himself making a public appearance in Tiananmen Square among throngs of thousands of people among throngs of red flags. The mass hysteria and brainwashing was way over the top, almost weird, strange, and the clapping and cheering. This performance was exactly the brainwashing that Mao - or those behind him -  had in mind with the Cultural Revolution as it was.
I gave a last hard look at the grotesqueness of what is becoming modern Chongqing turfing out little old places Left aligned photo tag:

Corner, Si Qi Ko

and Right aligned photo tag:
hurried back to the hostel to be met by a couple of guys, one who books journeys down the Yangtze River. Another holiday traveler - a Chinese guy nicknamed 'Violin' (because his name in Chinese sounds similar) - accompanied me and would help to explain things as we went along.
Waiting in the booking office, there were cozy pictures of luxurious rooms, large, with mahogany cabinet draws, clean carpets, and all the rest, it seemed.
We soon checked into our dorm quarters: a two double bunk bed affair. If any viewer considers doing the trip, don't expect a lap of luxury. The rooms are cramped, beds are small, no hot water exists, except that it is tepid once the engines start working and the boat gets moving. They will give you an extra card-permit to have the privilege of viewing the passing scenery on the fourth floor all the way around, providing you pay for it, of course. Luckily we could view the surrounds from other places such as at the back of the boat. None of this was explained to me when booking my passage. Because me and Violin were going to be the only two occupying a four bedroom, they asked us to pay an extra 600 Yuan. NO WAY!! YOU CAN GO TAKE A RUNNING JUMP!!. Violin politely explained "it wasn't necessary." You're damn right it wasn't! How were we to know the two other guys who'd booked the other beds didn't show up? They got the message. Due to overcrowding, some were sleeping in the foyer. The could have had the spare beds. If any wish to take this cruise, you've been warned.
The boat left the bright lights of Chongqing glimmering on the river at eleven.