Day 11

Chongqing to Shanghai

Date - 13 May

Weather - Sunny and very warm

Accommodation - Renaissance Hotel 


This was a long day of plane travel to take us from central china to Shanghai on the coast. We had the opportunity for a rare sleep-in as we didn't depart for the airport until after our early lunch at the hotel which was at 11.30am. Lunch was a round-table of ten dishes and again it was served with Western chips. Very soon we are going to look like a round table as we are eating well for breakfast, lunch and dinner! 



On the way to the airport Mike told us in detail why his wedding day was such torture.  We found it very amusing but it did seem like torture as well as costing a lot of money.  There was quite a lot of coughing on the bus and most of us now have the low-level virus. Some have bought Chinese cough mixture.



The flight to Shanghai was late leaving and involved a late change to the gate, a wait where we had to stand in the bus for a stifling thirty minutes and a long ride to the plane. Chongqing's two international airports are huge and the whole process was chaotic, however, Mike had it all under control. 


From Chongqing, a distance of 1500kms, to Shanghai the country was bathed in smog. From our plane we could see the high smog line. When we approached Shanghai the smog worsened and we could barely see the city. We arrived in Shanghai at 6.00pm and after making our way through another huge airport we were on the bus by seven.


Our local tour guide is Thomas and he had arranged for a Subway roll, a cookie and water for dinner. We were grateful for it as we were all very tired and those with the virus just wanted to have a hot shower and go to bed. None of us could have managed to go out to dinner. 


The drive to the West Bank where our hotel is located took 45 minutes. Shanghai looked very pretty at night. Thomas said, "Don't ask me what that building is. It wasn't there yesterday!"


Tomorrow is a tour of Shanghai. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 16

Image
Zhongshan - Macau - Hong Kong  Date - 18 May Weather - Overcast, hot and humid  Accommodation - Nina Towers, Kowloon, Hong Kong  We had a transfer day today from China via Macau to Hong Kong. It involved a lot of passport and visa checking and four changes of buses to clear all the immigration security.  As we set out in our coach Mike was nostalgic as he reviewed our trip and it's highlights. It made us feel the same. We have covered over 10,000 kms and we have seen so much in such a short time but there is much more to see as the country is vast and varied. Mike encouraged us to visit Tibet as there is no industrial pollution and their customs are quite different. Mike is a Buddhist and wears his prayer beads all the time. He thanked Buddha for "His arrangement" over our past days together. He thought we were "great tourists" compared to some "troublemakers" who have different opinions or different cultures!  This year, the Canadian-based Si...
Read more

Day 13

Image
Shanghai to Guilin to Yangshuo  Date - 14 May Weather - Sunny and warm  Accommodation - Jasper Hotel, Yangshuo Our early morning call was 4.00am and Henk and I had our bags down in the lobby for 4.45am for the bus. With the exception of two of our party not getting the early morning call it was all very efficient and we were given breakfast bags with juice, fruit, muffin and croissant. Barb and Michael were given assistance packing by the hotel staff and they were on the bus in no time. Once again we had to go through security and passport control. Even domestic travel requires passport checking. The plane trip took two hours from Shanghai to Guilin and we immediately on the bus heading to the city centre of Guilin where we had lunch. After lunch we spent two hours on the coach driving through picturesque countryside with large limestone outcrops onto Yangshuo calling into a tea plantation on the way. The plantation, a government-owned experimental farm, was on a flat...
Read more