Day 10

Yangtze River Cruise to Chongqing

Date - 12 May

Weather - Smoggy, warm - 29c

Accommodation - Raddison Hotel, Chongqing


For the last four days we have travelled west from Jingzhou to the super city of Chongqing. Chongqing  which sits beside the busy Yangtze River has a population of 34 million. The city is China's biggest and was the original capital. We moored at the centre of Chongqing at 6.15am and visibility was very poor as a dense smog covered the city. It is a city known for its fog, mist and being hot. Mike says the people in summer are like steamed Dim Sims.



Chongqing will be the furtherest west we will travel. We disembarked at 8.30am and walked for fifteen minutes along the wharf and past a lot of construction to our bus. 


Some of our tour group have contracted a low level virus with sore throats etc. It seems to last only a day so hopefully we will stay healthy. We are frequently washing our hands where possible and using hand sanitiser before eating. 


Today was a city tour with a local citizen called Alan. Apparently the city has changed dramatically since 2003 when the river depth increased significantly with the building of the Three Gorges Dam and this has allowed shipping to the city.


Our first stop was the Chongqing Zoo where we spent the morning. The highlight was the giant pandas where there were three cumbersome, chubby, playful babies and eight adults. We were fortunate to see most of them as it was feeding time and they skilfully chomped their way through their allocated bamboo.



There were also quite a number of red pandas. The large zoo which is surrounded on all four sides by high rise buildings and houses an array of animals from all over the world. It is popular with the Chinese. Quite a number of animals were housed in concrete pens and it is clear the zoo is transitioning to the more appropriate larger enclosures. 




Our lunch was very tasty with a round-table selection of local Chongqing dishes. The area is known for its use of chilli in their food so we were thankful they held back on it for our lunch. 


After lunch we headed to an old part of the city, Shapingba. Unlike a lot of the city the area wasn't bombed by the Japanese  during World War II. We passed a number WWII bomb shelters some of which housed up to 10,000 people during the war and are now used for other purposes.


The traditional area had beautiful two-story dark wooden buildings. 



Underneath them in the little narrow lanes were about 100  little shops which has formed a popular market place. 



It was heaving with young Chinese and tourists. The shops sold a great range traditional wares and food. A number of shops had people dressed in traditional costumes enticing buyers. By the time we left the market it was very warm and we were pleased to get into the bus and get out of the heat and the smog. 



Dinner was at the Raddison restaurant where we were served ten different, delicious dishes. There would have been about 300 people in the huge banquet room. They were all foreign tourists staying at the very large Raddison Hotel. 


Chongqing is about 1400kms from Shanghai which is our destination tomorrow. We will fly to Shanghai tomorrow afternoon. 

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