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Chongqing/ yangtze river 3 gorges cruise. #1.
Up early packed and left the mix hostel to head for the start of the 3 gorges tour. Got the underground from our station 'wengshu monastery' to the north train station and a 3 hour bullet train to Chongqing. We were picked up at the station by a random Chinese woman and taken to the centre of the city as part of our tour.
Chongqing, from the fair amount that I saw, was a bit of a dive. It's unbelievably built up and as far as skyscrapers and massive buildings piled on top if each other goes, is the biggest city I have ever seen by far. An American guy on the boat said that if you look in 1 direction, what you can see is bigger than Chicago, but then you look behind you, then left or right and there's another part of the city just the same size! It's a shipping city and very much a local place, I reckon it's where most of the stuff brought on eBay is sent from, hundreds of Chinese men run around the streets with huge bags and parcels (even fridges) on their backs. All the side streets and pavements are full of people frantically labeling and throwing them onto lorries of the next poor guys back! There was so much building work going on everywhere, more buildings, more flats and more skyscrapers going up in every space possible, I dont know when they're going to stop!
We had a few hours to kill before frying on board and ended up getting some dodgy food ordered at random from a Chinese menu in a horrible dingy restaurant under scaffolding full of local workers, we went for a safer option for dinner hand go some ok noodles from a restaurant on the pavement, but that was soon ruined when we realized we were sitting next to a black bin that all the left overs were poured into (and were still being poured in while we sat eating 4feet away) to make it even worse a man came along with a couple of big buckets and proceeded to sieve all the left over noodles, veg and crap out, then pour all the fat oil and soup down the drain. Lovely!
To be honest we didn't feel particularly comfortable walking around or even enjoy doing it so we picked up a few bits for the trip then made an iced coffee last 2 hours in Starbucks until it was time to leave. I couldn't wait to get out if the city and onto the boat although I must say that it did make fir a beautiful, glowing skyline as we watched it fade into the dark from our balcony on the boat.
We got our boat 'the Victoria 2' and were bloody surprised to be met by chandeliers smart staff and a really nice, almost luxurious home for the next few days. Clean towels, a hot shower and en-suite, balcony, tv and comfy (ish) beds - we were like kids at Christmas man! Haha
Me and az are sharing a room, it looked like a nice expensive hotel room when we arrived, but within an hour it wad trashed.. Littered with beer bottles, backpacks and clothes, the bathroom flooded and a washing line strung between a light, the tv and the wardrobe. Ahhh that's a bit more homely.... :) smera is sharing with a lone Irish traveller called Nev, she's a really nice girl and smera' happy to have a bit of female company for a few days so it all worked out nicely!
Considering it's meant to be a western boat and tour there's about 20 of us on board, mostly OAP's and a couple of families, and the other 50 are all Chinese surprise surprise. I don't mind to be honest, we're used to Chinese company by now and actually, before long Az and I were hanging over our balcony chatting to and 'gumbet-ing' the big group of Chinese men next door!
We had an explore of the ship then just sat on the balcony with Az getting very very drink on beers we had brought for 21p before we had got on (the ship is trying to sell the same beer for £3.50! Feckers) we sat, chatted and watched the cities fade away quite happily on our balcony until smera was banging at the door saying we were meant to be at the captains meet in the bar. By this point we were very pissed, full of energy and acting like complete clowns, we strolled late into the meeting (I was wearing the free slippers) and lasted a whole 10 seconds before slipping into a massive laughing fit, rolling around laughing and had to leave the room. We did manage to return, quite a few times actually, but couldn't keep a straight face and ran out stifling laughs, eyes streaming and out if breath from laughing, smera said that all they could hear was a few seconds of quiet while we left, then us bursting out laughing and screaming whilst we ran around the corridors haha good times. We were banished back to our room by smera who couldn't help but keep laughing when we were in the meeting lol so sat back on our balcony, wrapped in duvets and watched the boats and shadows of mountains go past, and chatted (mostly crap) long into the night...
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