China Day 6

---

27th September 2006

There was just enough time to return to the Silk Market before an afternoon flight to Chongquing. We were to embark on a three day cruise down the Yangzse to see the Three Gorges before the river level rises much more. We asked the hotel to contact the cruise company to find out which dock our boat would be leaving from and also asked for him to write it down for us in Chinese. This was our first internal flight with China Airways and the food wasn’t all that bad. However, the worst aspect of the flight was listening to people spitting into the sick bags and clearing their throats, and it wasn’t just the men! It’s not something I ever got used to in China, and one very off putting quirk of their culture.

When we arrived at Chongquing, we joined the queue for a taxi to take us to the boat. Unfortunately, there were no minibuses and so we had to take two taxis. The airport took a note of the taxi registration and destination which was reassuring, however Michael Schumacher and Fabio Alonso proceeded to race us to Chongquing harbour like it really was a Formula 1 race. We were very disconcerted to find that we completely lost the taxi with mum and dad in it and this was coupled with the fact that our driver didn’t seem to know where we were going. Mum and dad had the dock number in Chinese written on their paperwork and we had nothing. We got really worried when the taxi stopped in the middle of the town and the driver got out to ask someone else where he needed to take us. We then became an object of local curiosity, with people coming to the taxi window and staring in. We attempted to use the scant language in the back of our guide book together with the numbers to tell the driver which dock number we needed to go to. By this time it was dark and we were starting to wonder if would ever see mum and dad again. Our driver finally found the dock and we drove up and down looking for our boat. Mum and dads taxi past us and we then eventually located the boat. We booked in and were shown to our rooms, which were very nice with a small balcony. We had not eaten, and so went to the on board restaurant to eat a la carte. We witnessed the boat setting sail, and it was very murky outside. We thought that this was a result of the weather, but later learnt that this was pollution. The notice board had the itinerary on it and we noted that we were allocated a table with other passengers for all our meals. We checked out the bar, and sampled a beverage or two before turning in.

---

Photos

Chongquing
Start of our journey on the famous Yangtze river