Ron and Amy
Go To China

 

Day 8

Chongqing
Chongqing was a smoggy gray industrial city, at least it was while we were there. The bus dropped us off at the Railway Station. I consulted the book and we went to the nearby Fuyuan Binguan Hotel - which turned out to be the biggest nightmare of the whole trip, avoid this place at all costs - but more about this later. The whole area was penned in by massive construction projects - a new bridge and a highway overpass. We couldn't find any restaurants with English menus but still managed to obtain a decent bowl of noodle soup, some rolls and a beer.
Chongqing
more photos
The main reason we came to Chongqing was to arrange a boat trip on the Yangtze River. The docks on the river were all the way across town so we flagged down a taxi and showed the driver where we wanted to go on the Chongqing city map in the book. Chongqing and several other cities we visited have solved some of their traffic problems with tunnels that travel under the city and come out on the other side of town. When we once again ascended to the sunlit world, we got our first glimpse of the mighty Yangtze - it's a hard-working river indeed - with more traffic than the New Jersey Turnpike.
Yangtze River
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Yangtze River Cruises have become a very big tourist attraction and the majority of them start right here in Chongqing. I'd done a lot of research on the various trips from different tour books and on the internet. There are public ferries and high-end cruise lines, each with four classes of accommodations, based on how much you want to spend versus how many people you want to share your berth with. The most popular destinations are two day trips to Yichang and the three day trips to Wuhan, both of which pass through the river's main scenic attraction - The Three Gorges. The Gorges are stretches of the river where either side of the river is bordered with that reach up into the clouds. The Chinese are in the process of building a dam across the river near Yichang and the water level is steadily rising. The water has already risen 75 feet and some say the Gorges aren't as impressive as they used to be. By 2009 the water is suppose to rise another 75 feet before it levels off, so I guess that means it will even less impressive then - so buy your China tickets ASAP. For that matter, there is so much new construction going on that the whole country may be unrecognizable by 2009.
Fire Fighting Guipment - No Fouching
In my research on the cruises, I also ran across a lot of dissatisfaction as well - the ships are noisy, crowded, smoky, the food was pricey and not very good were common complaints from books, internet postings and a woman that Amy talked to briefly in Yangshuo. There was another option. There was a hydrofoil that ran from Wanzhou (3 hrs. by bus from Chongqing) through the Three Gorges to Yichang in only six hours. This sounded better to us. The only hitch was we had to be back at the dock at 7am the next morning.
This is where the nightmare comes in. We requested and got a 5:30am wake-up call from the hotel. We packed up our things and went to the front desk to get back our 100 yuan key deposit. The woman at the front desk wasn't going to give it to us. She kept saying, "There is a problem with your toilet." I kept saying, "What are you talking about? The toilet works just fine. I just used it before we came down." To which she would repeat, "There is a problem with your toilet." Amy and I looked at each other dumbfounded. I said, "Have someone go check it." Another woman went upstairs and came back but the refrain was still the same. Amy was afraid we'd miss our bus over about $12.50 USD but I was feeling stubborn again, my sense of fair play was being violated. After a little more screaming, we went out and hailed a cab. Two security guards followed us. One guard stood in front of the cab so we couldn't pull away. We got out and went to hail another cab. Now the guards were grabbing us by the arms. I yanked my arm away from the one but the other guard was twisting Amy's wrist and she screamed. I was furious. A small crowd was starting to assemble. Both guards were trying grab hold of me and I was about ready to start swinging. Amy offered them more money and they backed off. The woman took the 100 yuan note that Amy had. We took off down the street to get another cab. For some reason, the woman came running after us with 70 yuan in change. I snatched the money away from her and told her off anyway.
We sped away in a cab and made our bus to Wanzhow. Looking back, I'm lucky I didn't get into an all-out brawl and thrown in jail all for a lousy $15.		  
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