Hot hot hotpot, cold cold us!!!

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Well we said a not too lengthy goodbye to a rather nippy Xi'an....and we did it in style! As suggested in the last blog we were to be heading out of there on seats.....or so we thought....we were fairly optimistic all things considered and arrived at our carriage with our faces registering pure shock, mingled with horror as well as complete (total and utter!) disbelief!!! It was like a sheep lorry! You know how they pack them on with knees in backs.....well that was the carriage we were facing.....only I think they are more humane to animals back home!! There were upto 5 people on 2 person seats, and people standing shoulder to shoulder in the aisles! When (and if) I get the photos up you can see for yourselves - this was NO joke! I made the pretty instant decision that no matter how desperate I was to escape the cold and wet of Xi'an NOTHING on this earth was getting me into that carriage......

FOrtunately the sheer shock on our faces and blatant relucatance to venture too near attracted the attention of some nearby guards....who took pity on us. Combined with some of Jen's violent motioning that 15 hours sitting in there with no sleeping capable the guard came up with the idea that we might like to sleep with the staff.............No question about it...we were there.......and so (with some trepidation - i wasn't sure if the whole train was going to be like it or whether we were going to be charged the earth) we headed for the staff carriage. This was not too bad all things considered and was decidedly better than the alternative, we would have beds and more importantly air!!!! Negotiations revealed that the 'upgrade' would in fact, be cheaper than if we had bought the ticket in the first place! Bargain indeed!!! Safely ensconsed in the staff quarters and we were off!!! Only to be plunged into complete darkeness at 18.30! Apparently they like to economise in that section! Fortunately a rather lovely family.....whose 'dad' was not unlike mine was keen to cease the opportunity for his daughter to practice her english and with some eagerness (on both parts) we were escorted into the proper (lit) carriages to 'chat'! This rather impropmptu english corner led to multiple invites to be driven to our hostel, to go out for dinner, to be helped barter for our Yangtze river cruise (the main reason we were headed to Chongqing!!!) and so on! Which we accepted as declining was virtually impossible! The chinese are so hospitable! The family were delightful and ever so keen for their daughter to practice (see what i mean about dad!!!) And so upon arrival we were sheperded into a car, with the family + Jen squashed into the back and me in the front (I was so humbled!) as my legs were too long I was told!!! They helped us find our hotel and suggested we meet again at 6 for Hotpot! A famous Chongqing dish! This decided we were left to our own devices.........The hotel called Jin Jiang was comparative luxury to our previous accommodation (though not a sign of things to come!!!) with huge beds, squidgy mattresses and a gloriusly hot shower!!! Oh the things you long for travelling!

Checked in and peering out the window we were seriously dubious about the actual value of going down the Yangtze.....we could barely see 20 metres in front of ourselves! Let alone towering gorges! However we decided we should atleast see how much it would be and what bartering could be done! So off we went round the houses (or travel agencies) in Chongqing! 6 later we had established that we could basically get the trip for half the advertised price and do it in a 1 day, 1 night trip as opposed to 4 days, 3 nights! This fitted much better with our now considerably reduced time left in China!

And so, having spent all day wondering the streets we headed back for dinner! Once again we were escorted by our 'adoptive family' to supposedly the best hotpot restaurant in Chongqing - and it smelt like it! soooo hot pot.......basically a bowl of chilli soup sat on a gas burner, bubbling away in which you are supposed to cook a wide variety of foodstuffs! It was only about 5 minutes before departing, and 5 minuteds after confirming the invitation that Jen decided to read the Lonely Plant 'Hotpot' definition, which in fact revealed that Hotpot foodstuffs included a wide range of offal! Joy of all joys!!!

Somewhat committed now we reached the conclusion it may have to be a case of grin and bare it! Once seated, with a bubbling pot of Chili in front of us, plates started appearing....with a range from pigs stomach, ducks intestine, chicken gullet and sheep blood mousse to name but a few! Sounds pretty scrummy don't you think! Unfortunately photos could not capture the pure horror on our faces! That said it was suprisingly tasty - my favourite becoming the chicken gullet, which opened like a flower when introduced to the Chili Hotpot!! Jen's being the eel slices! It was all in all a fantastic experience and unlike anything we had done before and probably unlike anything we will do again!!!! The family were great and we had a lovely time. After that they took us out and about (with interestingly burning lips and tongues - I swear the hotpot got hotter the longer it boiled for!) to see the sights whilst negotiating through various contacts to get us the cheapest tickets available! They were truly lovely and it was quite sad to say goodbye......however the Yangtze now beckoned!

Our yangtze experience was to begin with a 3 hour bus trip to Huangzhou from where we would board our 4 star boat - now that was laughable!!!! The bus trip was suprisingly compfortable and we began to believe that Chinese tours weren't all that bad! (we had had our doubts as we had booked with a firm that spoke no english and had promised us a very good deal - confirmed by our family's dad but still a little bit above our understanding and in doubt!) However our first views of the boat made these opinions waver considerably!!! Opening the door to our 4 birth cabin further reduced them! Our 'beds' were 5foot 10 in length exactly - I know this as I was an exact fit!!! Our matresses were what they call 10 mil matresses, although in my opinion it was more like 5mil! And it was 5 mil ontop of a sheet of not particularly squidgy plywood! Oh the joys! However a gungho attitude and a top quality bottle of Great Wall Wine made it seem all the more bearable! Our ticket (in all its glory) included a visit to (yet another) temple, the three mini gorges and the 3 gorges dam!

The temple visit was to be on the first evening, much to our surprise between 10 and 11pm!!! Needless to say we peered our way around the temple and took some drunken photos! Quality job!!! Then it was back to the boat to continue our delightful experiences! We staggered back to the boat and fell into our beds! If you could call them that! Our planks of wood, cushioned with nothing.......and fell into a deep slumber....wishful thinking! With my hips and shoulders screaming in protest I tossed and turned for a full three and a half hours! Until at 3.30 am - YES am! Our delightful tour leader decided to blast out on the loudspeaker that we were going through the first of the three gorges which coincided rather delightfully with repeated blasts on the ships horn!!! Which, to our horror, continued throughout the night until our wake up call at 6am!!!! And so, well rested and wide awake we boarded the smaller boat that was to take us up the Smaller 3 gorges for the 'views of a life time'! And it was pretty spectacular and made all the more special by the fact that many of them will be flooded in 3 years when they flood the Yangtze for a rather enormous dam - the biggest HEP project in the world - 2.5 km long and 200 metres high! The water depths behind it are to be increased to 175 metres taking with it 21 counties along the river as well as whole cities!!! Incredible! WIth this I began to realise that the CHinese really don't stop at anything!

And so off up the Smaller Gorges we went, in a bit of a fridge in all honesty! It was perishing cold and somewhat unpleasant which did detract from the splendour of the scenery! Our tour was also hindered considerably by the fact that the entire tour and schpiel given was solely in Chinese and the guides spoke NO english! So we missed many of the critical facts and were only given the heads up for sights of interest, when like sheep, the tour groups suddenly got up and raced to one side of the boat or the other! Hilarious!! We passed numerous farms, villages and sites where livelihoods are to be lost and people relocated (over a million in total!) - it was quite shocking! We even saw a whole new city built to accommodate the previous flooding which had completely submerged the old city!

From our luxurious boat (or fast seemingly so - when we spied our next boat!) we were transfered onto a traditional chinese motor boat and seated virtually in the outside! This allowed us to go deeper into the gorges to see ancient sites where coffins were discovered of ancient remains....or something to that extent ....this was deduced from our chinese guide being translated into pigeon english by a very helpful fellow....who really enjoyed having his picture taken with me!!! Bless!!!! So...frozen to the core we returned to the medium boat to go back to the big boat to make our way to the Dam and the source of all the flooding!

We were by now particularly cold and not all that keen to see any sites other than a blazing english fire and a big mug of hot choolate - dream and on sprung to mind!! On we went through the remaining 2 gorges (although we have to admit to cowering in our room beneath duvets!) peering out through the window...though credit where credit is due.....the views were stunning, the geology impressive and the gorges pretty amazing! 5 hours later and we had made it to the dam. To be sheperded off, chinese tour stylee - flag and everything much to Jen's delight, on to yet another bus (not a boat thankfully!!!) on which we were driven around to the dam to take photos and appreciate the sheer scale of the project - and man is it BIG!!! Jen did get a little peeved toward the end when she realised she had paid a whole 8GBP entrance fee and all that she saw was a model of the dam and viewpoints (photo opportunities) from 3 different sites! However the slight language barrier meant complaints were not to be made....much to her disappointment!

Our tour ended in a place called yichang where a breif transfer saw us onto another bus (after a breif interlude where we feared we had been ripped off, as the promised named bearing dude with the card was nowhere to be found!) and en route to Wuhan! Unfortunately it was now getting ppretty late in the day and we didn't arrive there until 2 am.......although we had phoned ahead and booked our hostel failed to have beds, sheets, room.....anything ready (well except - thank goodness - our train tickets onto Guilin!) and so a 45 minute check in ensued with Jen getting seriously p****d!!!! Offering to 'help' at every opportunity! ANd finally we had made it..............to yet another seriously cold, uncomfortable and unwelcoiming bedroom. Where a heater and a mattress (yep we got the old 10 mil matresses AGAIN!!!) - you know just the bare necessities would have been great!!! A not so great nights sleep got us up and about and dying for a nice lengthy hot shower.............next joke! A brief downpour of hot water quickly waned away to nothing......fortunately I had been dithering a bit - soimewhat reluctant to take any clothes off and brave the cold, not so fortunate was Jen who had leapt in, got wet and then got seriously upset as the water faded to nothingness!!!!

So somewhat grubby, annoyed and hungry (oh yeah forgot to mention that the entire dam, bus, change of bus all features around 3 oranges and an apple and NO other food - whereas we had been expecting to stop.......again another joy of the language barrier!) we ventured out into Wuhan to bump into an ex-civil engineer (Sam) from the UK who had moved to China to learn Chinese and having been there a while knew all the good haunts for food! And so breakfast beckoned! The local delicacy being Hot and Dry Noodles - I mean what's a bit of chili first thing in the morning!!?!! Not bad, not bad at all....no grease anyway, a delicate peanut taste and an overriding chili flavour! We spent the rest of the morning chatting to Sam and some pretty lovely guys from the hostel, before catching our next train to Guilin!

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