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Oh I just love it when I leave the blog a few days..so much to catch up on! I'm currently in a small city just outside of Chongquing killing time before my bullet train to another city, followed by a night train to Yangshuo..it's been a busy few days!
On the 11th we arrived in the big ugly city of Chongquing early in the morning and took a taxi to a lovely crummy hotel that charged by the hour (!?) so that we could pay for 1 room to recharge and dump our bags in. Apart from some questionable items for sale in the room and practically blacked out windows from all the smog, it was pretty comfy abd much needed after a night playing too much werewolf and not getting enough sleep! We then caught the metro to the zoo where we saw giant pandas. There are only about 1500 left in the world and we saw 8 of them in this zoo so that was cool :) we also saw lions, tigers, bears (oh my!), rhinos, hippos, elephants, giraffes, red pandas, zebras and all the usual shebang when it comes to zoos, pretty impressive collection for a little city zoo but as usual the Chinese outdid themselves by allowing their children to just go to the loo on the path whenever they felt like it (just like a dog!), feeding the animals their crisps and jeering and shouting at the animals...is there no end to this madness?!
We then left to go and grab some lunch at a nice hotpot restaurant which had a nice view over the river. We had a great time mixing our own marinade out if a the Chinese spices, sauces and herbs and then each had our own stove where we had this soup like thing sizzling on it. We then ordered bacon, shrimp dumplings, veg, potato and mushrooms to pop into the soup to cook..sort of a fondue but with random eggs and veg floating around..! It was yummy but I must say I was still hungry after as bits of bacon and a few bit of veg didn't really fill me up! Ill stick to a pile of beef next time :) we then went back via Walmart to stock up on dry noodles, m&ms (I'm seriously addicted) and chocolate flavoured tea (closest I can get to hot choc) and then practically sprinted for 20 minutes with all our bags on to catch the bus to take us to the boat.
We were the last on the coach already stuffed with Chinese tourists and had a cozy (hot and cramped) 4 hour drive to our boat it was very picturesque though with beautiful mountains and the huge Yangtze River snaking into the horizon. We were very happy to discover that we'd been upgraded to the 'president cruise' (I know!!) because our crumby boat hasn't had enough people booked onto it - result! We had our pot noodles whilst the rest of the guests had their all inclusive banquet supper and settled into bed, after a quick game of cards, pretty exhausted! The next day we woke up at the luxurious time of 9 and went up on deck to watch the boat drive through the first of the 3 gorges. All the Chinese tourists had taken a day trip so we pretty much had the 6 floor boat to ourselves which was very nice. The 'no outside food' sign did slightly unnerve us but we did the annoying tourist thing where you pretend not to understand and eventually they gave up. I am obsessed with sunflower seeds and feel rather like a licsl cracking through shell after shell and racing through a bag :) We went through 2 of the 3 gorges yesterday and they were absolutely beautiful with the clear river and humongous towering mountains on either side. I found them much more beautiful than halong bay and so peaceful compared to the chaos of all the Chinese cities we've been to! We then spent a relaxing day playing cards, learning how to play ma jiang on the cool electronic table (we played in teams and caleb and I weren't amazing but we won a few cards (our money)) and reading on deck in the sun. We ended the day rather burnt (me less so than others!) but very happy to have had a hot day in shorts in the sun..feels like its been a while! That night we tucked into more pot noodles and were taught a new Chinese card game by Vivian which I affectionately have named 'Floom' (it started as 'great aunt Flo' but we felt Floom was more catchy). It was bliming hard but good fun :)
This morning we woke up at 6:15 and were off the boat a 7 packed up and ready to go. We saw the 3 gorges dam which looked humongous in the bright sunshine and jumped on a coach to the city where we're taking our bullet train from. That's where I am now sitting in a restaurant called Teddy's which is very kitsch with teddies everywhere but the wifi is good so we're happy :) I have a slimey salad in front of me and am looking forward to some good Chinese food in a proper restaurant again!! It feels like yonks since we've been in a proper hotel. We arrive in the next place tomorrow evening and I'm doing a cooking course in the countryside which should be fun. We also have a cycle trip, mud spa, hot springs and calligraphy class on the menu which should be fun so bring on the next few days in the beautiful Chinese mountains!!
Lots of love, Flo x x x
- comments
YKW The gorges sound amazing - take lots of photogarphs! (I know you are documenting everything religiously but thought I'd remind you he he!) Also I am extraordinarily jealous of your cooking and calligraphy classes...fully expecting you to come home and teach me all your new found skills Miss Florence! Lots of love xxx