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Published: March 10th 2007
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Landmark in Chengdu
This statue of Mao Zedong is a famous landmark in the centre of Chengdu. Mao statues like this aren't very common in China. Chongqing, Chengdu, Dazu and Hobbit Town (?)
On a bus one day I talked to a man and I asked him where he was from. He said "I am from a small town called Jingmen". It turned out that three million people live in Jingmen making it more than twice as large as Stockholm, the largest city in Sweden. To put things in perspective you need to know that already in 1989 there were actually not less than 28 cities in China that had more than 8 million inhabitants each. It's fascinating that several of those cities are barely known outside China. You can try yourself on these: TianJing, Dalian, Qingdao, Chongqing, Wuhan and NanJing. Those cities are all in the same size as Paris, London or New York City. Still totally unknown to most people. So with only three million people Jingmen is only a small town.
There are 1,3 billion people living in China. No surprising then that China is very crowded. It can easily get stressful to travel here because there are people everywhere. But it is surprisingly easy anyway. The Chinese people are very helpful. Every time I get stuck and need help there is
Snakes in a jar
In a restaurant I found a big jar with snakes in it. There is liqour in the jar and the snakes are flavouring. Snakes is probably believed to makes a man powerful or is a substitute for viagra. always someone who speaks English who happily helps me out.
The Chinese people are very friendly. Sometimes a little too friendly for a European to feel comfortable. When I have dinner with friends I want to "go Dutch", that is each one pay for himself. But in China it is not uncommon that a Chinese friend can pay for the dinner even when you insist that you want to pay for it or that you should split the tab.
Now that the subject food came up I might as well mention that the food in the provinces in the south differs from the food in the north in one very important aspect - in the south it is very spicy. I don't like spicy food but as long as I manage to explain to the waitresses at the restaurants that the combination chili and Ake is a big no-no and they respect that the food is in general very good.
On this trip I visited some other places than the Three Gorges. First I arrived in Chengdu. It is large but nice and surprisingly quiet city in Sichuan Province. I have visited Chengdu before so I didn't
Chengdu skyscraper
...well not all skyscrapers in Chengdu look the same. This is kinda cute, isn't it? stay longer that it took me to get a ticket to Chongqing.
Chongqing is also a large city, it's one of those gigant cities I mentioned earlier, but not as nice and quiet Chengdu. It is a very modern city and skyscrapers are being built everywhere. I found Chongqing a very stressful city and I also found it very difficult to find my way around when I was there. All the skyscrapers look the same and that makes it difficult to make your way around. You can't find any good reference points if everything looks the same. But then, Chinese people all look the same so I guess it is not surprising that their skyscrapers also all look the same. Don't worry about the rude touch to that remark. The Chinese all think we westerners look the same so it works both ways.
I was in Chongqing to get on board the three gorges tour boat. But I also had a few hours to kill in the city. I spent one of those hours looking for tunnels from the second world war. In the 40-ies when Japanese troops were attacking the city the Chinese soldiers built a large
Tunnel entrance
This is the entrance to one of the tunnels in Chongqing. This part of the tunnel system has been converted into an art gallery. system of tunnels and air raid shelters under the city. Some of these tunnels are now shops, art galleries or tea houses. It is not really a tourist sight though so it was hard to find them even though I had a local man and his cousin from Vancouver helping me. When I read about the tunnels they sounded a lot more interesting than they actually are. The ones that are open are unrecognisable since they today have other functins. I guess it could be possible to get special permits to go into tunnels normally closed off. But that was for obvious reasons out of the question for me.
From Chongqing I took the tours of the Three Gorges. See my previous entry on this blogg for details about that.
On the way back to Chengdu to catch my flight back home I stopped by a town named Dazu to see the
Dazu Rock Carvings. At a dozen or so different locations people have out of the rock carved thousands of statues. The smallest of the statues are only about 1 dm and the largest is a lying Buddha well over 10 meters in length. But the typical size of
Luohan Temple
People are burning incense in the Luohan Temple in Chongqing the statues is from 2 to 3 meters. Dazu Rock Carvings
In various places in China it is possible to find similar statues, such as
Yungang Buddhist Caves outside Datong and
Mogao Caves outside Dunhuang.
The statues outside Dazu were created between 800 and 1000 years ago making them younger than their counterparts elsewhere in China. The Dazu Rock Carvings also differs from other sites with Rock Carvings in that the statues are not only inspired by Buddhist beliefs but also by Taoism, Hinduism and Confucianism. I find it interesting that several religions are depicted in one and the same place like this. I can’t recall ever having seen that anywhere else before. So I guess that is a bit rare.
While going from the Three Gorges to Chengdu I travelled by bus through hilly areas of Chongching and Sichuan provinces. The land there has been cultivated for hundreds of years so in every little valley there was one or two houses. Going from each house was a little footpath reaching over the hills surrounding the house to the neighbour in the next valley. Around the houses there were small patches of land, irregular in shape, where the farmer grows
Chongqing railway station at 2 AM
In the middle of the night there were thousands of people standing outside the Chongqing railway station. I guess they were going to take an early train and couldn't afford a hotel for the night. vegetables or rice. Sometimes there could also be found a small pond or a tiny creek on the farm. The houses were small but nice looking and in good shape and the fields were also well tended. The scenery looked very familiar somehow but first I couldn’t really place it. The landscape didn’t look quite real. It looked more like it was something out of a fairy tale. Then it struck me where I have seen this - in Lord of the Rings. It looked like the town where the Hobbits live. I tried to take photos through the windows of the bus and the best ones I have added to the blogg. But the dirty bus windows and the speed of the bus made sure to make it pretty much impossible to catch the Hobbit Town spirit on images.
After one week in China it was time to return home again. The flight home turned out to be more eventful than I had bargained for. The first leg from Chengdu to Beijing was as dull as one can expect. But the flight from Beijing to Stockholm started off as boring as any trip but evolved into a bit
Hobbit town
The farming country in Chongqing Province reminded me of Hobbit Town in Lord of the Rings. This photo sucks but the others are even worse. of an adventure. First the flight was delayed. But one and a half hours late we boarded the plane and we started to roll towards the runway. We didn’t get very far before we stopped though. The pilots announced that we had a mechanical problem and to wait for a while for the mechanics to look into it. Meanwhile we were offered drinks. An hour later we started to roll towards the runway again but once more we had to stop. The mechanical problem was still there. This time we were offered not only drinks but also food. After sitting on the plane for three hours we were let off and taken back to the terminal again. The plane was replaced with a new one and we could start off again more than 10 hours delayed. I called Air China yesterday to try to negotiate some sort of refund. The service is not quite to my satisfaction if the flight is more than 10 hours delayed. I didn’t have to negotiate at all. I only mentioned what flight I was on and they immediately said “The flight was late and you want a refund. Robert handles that.”. Now Robert was
Hobbit town
The farming country in Chongqing Province reminded me of Hobbit Town in Lord of the Rings. I couldn't really catch the Hobbit feeling but I tried. out for the day so I don’t know what refund I will get. But I trust I’ll be happy with what they suggest. Air China wants to join the Star Alliance and they are very careful about not getting any bad publicity.
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Ahmad
non-member comment
Great photos and great story!!!
Ake, when are going back home to Stockholm. You were in Yemen yesterday and now you are in China. ANyway-Thanks again for all your great stories mate... Ahmad