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What better way to cure a hangover than jump on a tube and float down a river in the midday sun?! That's exactly what we thought as we slowly stirred into consciousness around 10:30am. Josh went up to wake up Jane (the sexual tension between them was unfathomable) who agreed to take us tubing herself. The 5 of us quickly went to maccy d's for our healthy breakfast then Jane took us down to the river. We discovered that hair of the dog really is a great hangover cure as we merrily floated down the Li River sipping on some horrendously mixed drinks. The tubing was one of the best experiences of our trip so far. Unlike Laos where the river is flowing incredibly fast and the banks are lined with bars and rope swings blaring out music, we were all floating really slowly downstream in the bright sunshine and very few other people in sight. The views were incredible and it was so chilled to just lie back in our tubes and close our eyes. The midday sun however started to get the best of us and after a couple of hours we could feel ourselves all absolutely burnt to a crisp. Josh's nose took quite a hit and soon resembled the nose of Santa's favourite reindeer. While lying back in our tubes, listening to music off Jane's waterproof ipod and speakers, we ordered our lunch from a restaurant further down stream. Josh and Ruthie were lucky enough to float within a couple of metres of a herd of water buffalo with their calf going for an afternoon swim which was pretty cool. At the restaurant we ate fried egg and tomato while Jane ate some horrendously spicy dish (it was genuinely just a pile of chillis) then jumped in a minivan which took us back to our hostel. Once we were in the shade of our room, it became apparent that we had been totally destroyed by the sun! Our burn lines were horrific! We looked like the most typical British tourists! Oh well, we decided to view it as a pre-tan rather than burn, despite the intense pain that we would feel for the next few days whenever we tried to sleep, sit, or carry our bags! After a speedy checkout we said goodbye to Rob and Ruthie and headed to the airport.
For once we had plenty of time to kill and check-in went really smoothly. It was a sad moment as Sam and Josh had to say goodbye to George who was headed on a flight back to Shanghai in preparation for his departure on the evening of the 7th. With a couple of hours to kill before their flight, Josh and Sam just chilled in a coffee shop, taking advantage of their comfy seating by buying one coke between them! The flight was only an hour long - so much better than the 19.5 hour train journey we could have taken instead! The man across the aisle from Sam was yet another perfect example of a human severely lacking any social awareness as he phlemmed and coughed without covering his mouth for the entire journey. Arriving in Chongqing, around 10:30pm, we immediately got in a taxi and drove to our hostel. Chongqing used to be the capital of China and is absolutely huge. The population is around 30million people and the pollution is unreal. Skyscraper after skyscraper lined the banks of the river the city sits on. The skyline is called mini Hong Kong and you can really see why. After a bit of a struggle finding the hostel (it was down a poorly lit side alley off a busy highway) we arrived and checked in. We had chosen to stay in Tina's Hostel because although it is rated the lowest hostel in Chongqing on Hostelworld we managed to get a private twin room for only 40RMB per person and would rather that than share with people. Turns out the hostel was absolutely amazing and whoever had previously reviewed it was obviously a snobby twat! We had a large room with two single beds and air con and a bathroom you could do cartwheels in! After dumping our bags we tried to go out to find food but the door was chained shut…oh dear. We hadn't eaten since our macdonalds and were pretty starving! We went upstairs following signs to the roof bar which was apparently closed but found it to in fact be very open! On the way up we passed a terrace with a pool table on and another little café - how does this hostel have such poor reviews?! We ordered one all day breakfast and one omelette between us and sat down with our laptops to make use of the wifi and check our facebooks etc. The low rating of the hostel was then somewhat explained as a rat scurried across the floor, narrowly missing our legs! Slightly concerned about getting bitten we decided it was safer to sit with our feet up where the vermin could not attack us! After eating our meals we made a few skype calls and stupidly ended up staying awake until around 2:30am - may as well have gone for a night out! It was then down the bedroom to catch up on our sleep so we decided to set our alarms late - for around 10:30am.
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