Blogs from Chongqing, China, Asia - page 18

Gorges, Mah Jong & One Big Bloody Dam The more adventurous amongst us - (Yvette) made a mangement decision on behalf of the group to take the public bus to our sleeper train (from Guilin to Yi Chin) where we boarded the "Luxury Yangtzee River Cruise Liner". This decision was greeted with some disdain from the group but these non-believers were forced to eat their words you will be pleased to hear! As public bus journeys go, this ranks amongst my top 3. Imagine an clapped out old mini bus for 12 people with numerous ruck sacks taking up the front seats. Add 8 Gaijin, 1 driver, a bus conductor who screams and shouts (pulling the public onto the bus whilst the bus is still moving) and 8 more locals and you start to get ... read more

Although we have no real plans and just figure out how long we are staying somewhere and where we are going to go based on the mood of the day, transport options etc, the Yangtze river "cruise" was something Andrew had been looking forward to since leaving home - hailed as a must see sight in the world. Well, dissappointed does not even come close. In fact a nice old scots man inspired our blog title when he was giving his video diary. After discussing the merits of scots rugby and the amazing festivities had in Murrayfield a coule of weeks ago (sorry could not resisit!) he stated quite accurately that our "cruise ship" name Zhang He translates to mean a pile of shit in English. For starters the cabin left somewhat to be desired. It ... read more

David. We went on a Yangze river cruise, from Chongqing to Yichang to see the three gorges. They are one of the major tourist attractions of China, and also the site of the monalithic Three gorges Dam, which is going to flood the area, lower the visible height of the three gorges and displace about 1 and a half million people by 2009. Nice. Chongqing is a bit of a rough town really, a real port town. We did have a belting meal there though, spicy chicken and peanuts and they weren't kidding about spicy. I couldn't feel my tongue afterwards. Great stuff. We boarded the ship about 7pm so there wasn't much to see as it was dark already. The ship was a chinese one so the entertainment was Karaoke all the way! Our room ... read more

Yesterday we went on the Shennong stream Excursion. We travelled by a small ferry up one of the narrower tributaries where we passed and then met the same men in these rickety long narrow boats. We were loaded into these boats and then the men (wearing very little - in fact they use to do this in the nude) paddled us up some even smaller tributaries. It was a very magical experience, the mountains were on either side of us and the water so clear. I did not take my video and am mad at myself, but was worried about water damage. It was suppose to rain. There are rhesus monkeys that live in the surrounding areas but we did not see them. We saw some chinese birds (don't know what else to call them) with ... read more

Ok, a recap of the past week. Chongqing, although a big city was great! We upgraded our room to stay right downtown in a Chinese business hotel that was very nice, although the breakfast included was a bit unusual, but we are getting use to noodles and dumplings for any meal. We spent 3 days there, one day just walking around the old city Citapol or something like that, I don't have our book with us. The city is amazing as the estimates are 3-8 million, and tons of destruction. Somewhat similar to Shanghai but not as far along in its rebuilding, so there is an odd mix of the very old with the very new. We spent one day at Dazu caves. That was an amazing place. It was a Sunday and we went out ... read more