Chongqing

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We headed to the Chengdu long distance bus terminal to head to Chongqing. It is a five hour bus ride, but we are happy for soft seats, air conditioning, and an onboard toilet (not that we got the pleasure of trying it). It is a much better option than hard seats on the train. We ended up talking to a guy from Vancouver, BC that was traveling with his parents. They are of Chinese decent. They were traveling 5 star all the way. He was surprised we were doing the backpacking and curious to how bad our hotels have been. We advised him that even though we are backpacking that we tend to stay in nice hotels with a few unwanted exceptions. It was interesting having his take on the culture and his travels. He finds it amazing that for how proud they Chinese are about keeping their streets clean that they allow their toilets to be so raunchy. He agrees that Chinese people are pushy and do not know how to form a line for anything. I asked if he got the “tourist deal” (getting charged more or getting wrong change) when making transactions? He said not that he knows of but that people would assume he knew Chinese then be angry or frustrated that he did not. He said people were not very helpful to him, which surprised us because we have found people to be very helpful and nice.
We took a cab from the bus station to our hotel, called Huangjia Grand Hotel. It was on top of the city hill and had a view of the River. It is a place I would recommend to stay. Book online and you get about half the rack rate listed at the hotel.
Chongqing is a city of 30+ million people. There is a lot of hustle and bustle. They next day Scott and I walked around the wharf and looked for cruise booking agencies. What we did see was dilapidated boats that looked like ferries or tug boats, which is what they call their 3* and 4* cruise boats. We were not impressed.
An interesting historical fact: During War of Resistance Against Japan (WWII time frame) Chongqing was temporal capital and politcial center of operations. It seems that the Chinese, as most countries, like to celebrate their own while forgetting other countries contributions, an example is that there is an American has a museum here for General Stillwell, which is not mentioned on any tourist maps nor could it be found doing map searches of the area. We spoke to a few of the younger Chinese and they did not even realize that Americans gave aid during their war.
During my time here in searching for Stillwell museum I have learned quite a bit about the aid that was given to the Chinese by volunteer forces (such as the Flying Tigers and their support pilots which flew the supplies and materials over the "Hump", the Himalayas) and the US military once they got involved. It is a part of history that I would like to continue to learn more about.

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