Chongqing Express!

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Me and Jacie arrived in Chongqing at about midday, four hours later than scheduled. We had been in the amazing soft sleeper carriage so we didn't mind at all (in fact, I was quite pleased, this was one of the cleanest places in China I'd been) The man in our cabin was hardly there and didn't snore at all (although I was earplugged and eye-masked up so he could have been performing cabaret for all I know, but I think he may have just been asleep) The Chinese girl had a cold and made snuffling noises all the time so as not to have to do a bit Chinese-sneeze-mess, which was very considerate. She also ate cold soup/congee out of a can.

We walked out of the train station, and saw a man in front of us walking along (who'd just got off our train) with a live chicken in a bag. It's head and feet just straining out of little holes he'd thoughtfully poked in the bag. Jacie nearly shat herself, but composed herself quickly enough to get the camera out! (Pics coming soon, folks) The queue for the taxis was pretty long, but with Jacie's enormous snail-type bag, we weren't about to walk, so we manned up and started queuing. There was a freaky man at the stand, showing people to their taxi (entirely of his own volition) who had a crazy crackhead face, and was missing one of his knock-off crocs. He seemed oblivious to this, and his bare foot was black and had big sores all over it that looked awful. He went to go pee across the street, after stumbling around in the traffic for a while, and didn't quite tuck himself in in time, so Jacie got a not-so-pleasant surprise when he "waved" at her! Luckily, I was looking away at that minute, and was spared such a sight.

We checked in to the hostel and had some food, and went to go find a bank to pay the cruise lady. Our hostel was called Tina's Hostel, but there was no Tina! haha, a bit like the time I went to a Chinese restaurant in Cuba and there was no Chinese food. Our hostel was right in the Old Town (read:dirty town) but was very atmospheric. On the way to the bank, we happened upon a big group of Chinese people dancing La Rueda (the national Cuban dance, little known outside of Cuba) It was only because I've danced it that I recognised it, and everyone looked really weird. Some were totally getting into it though, and it was odd because Chinese people are usually very stiff when dancing (Stockton-based-Chinese excluded, of course) but they had a bit of groove! It was a bit like that Fatboy Slim video with all the backward people dancing, and even the normal ones looked like they were not all there. Some would just start dancing alone, and some were clearly showing off for us. It was a bit bizarre, and under the black brickwork and grey skies of Chongqing, I got dead freaked out. The crazy crack addict man at the train station wasn't doing anything to help this feeling, and it really reminded me of Catania where I'd had a similar feeling that everyone in the city was conspiring against us, and all knew something we didn't know, probably that they were going to make us their human sacrifice.

Me and Jacie found a really cool market, where everyone was pretty chilled, and didn't try to force us to buy anything, but we were really tired so decided to come back the next day. There were a couple of men at the roadside selling dried frogs and snakes as well. The boy from the hostel, Lee, recommended some food for me that I think was Kung Pow (gungbao) Chicken, which made me struggle to breathe. This, coupled with the close camera angles being used while we watched Nadal play tennis meant I was a little bit light headed by bedtime. (Definitely a female camera-man) Lee invited us to play a school game called Killer/Good Egg that we had learned at the summer school, which seems a little tame for a youth hostel, but he was so sweet (me and Jacie were a little bit in love with Lee!) that we almost played.

Next day was devoted to buying train tickets from Yichang (the dump where Yangtzhe Cruises' finish) on to Chengdu (me) and Suzhou. (Jacie) The first place we asked was inside a department store, which, even though it wasn't there, we were lent the security guard to go with us to the office. We walked for ages with our own personal security guard, and he looked *SO* embarrassed by being with two white girls, we wanted to send him away. Unfortunately our Chinese wasn't up to it so he stayed. We bought our tickets and I could only buy the first leg of my journey, so we decided to stay the night in Yichang and try to buy my ticket there.

Then we had a mission to the market to stock up for the cruise, and bought 12 beers, 3 bottles of baijo, 2 juices, some milk, no water, some crisps, a cucumber and a mobile phone. We were ready to begin. We saw the crackhead man again, and he made a backward person noise, so we felt bad for spreading rumours that he was a crackhead at the hostel. If he'd done that before, I'd have tipped him. Or at least give him a fiver toward a new Croc.

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