Just How Lucky Can You Get

Saturday 19 August

Another day on the move. Cases packed by 07.30 and off to visit the Muslim Quarter in Xian by 09.00. This appears to consist of a few narrow streets, with dingy shops selling everything from cooked food to bed linen, and jewellery to playing cards with the picture of Saddam Hussein on the back! As we ventured along, doing our best to avoid looking at anything too closely for fear of being abducted to the back of the shop to bargain, the streets became even narrower – barely enough room for one person to walk along, never mind the odd tricycle loaded with wares – until we reached the “Antique Street”. This was full of stalls selling mainly tut – and the same tut at that! Lots of fake jade, tin jewellery, and typical souvenirs to be found in every city’s markets. This street led to the Xian Mosque – the fourth most important Mosque in China and so, so different from those in Russia. It was built in the Chinese style in 1732, so there are no minarets, towers, and luxurious prayer rooms. It is mainly a series of small squares with pagodas and gardens, leading to a very dark and bare Prayer Room at the far end that we weren’t allowed to enter. They hold meetings five times a day and pray to the west (towards Mecca from here).

From here we left Xian and traveled to the airport for the flight to Chongqing and the Yangtze. How much better it is to travel by train when you can see the countryside and get some idea of where you are going. Chongqing has been undergoing a heatwave for the past two weeks or so – last week the temperatures were up to 44 degrees C – the highest for 60 years in this area and there is a severe drought in this area. Today the temperature was 39 degrees C, not so humid as Beijing, but like walking into a fire as you step from the air-conditioned coach into the street.

We were supposed to go to the zoo and see the pandas, but due to the excessive heat our new guide, Davy, (we still have Lei with us as tour leader) suggested we went to an exhibition of the Japanese in China during World War II – this area was one of the main prisoner of war areas and the Chinese people here still very strongly about the atrocities they were subjected to in the war. We had the first democratic vote in China – and we all voted to take our chances at the zoo. How lucky we did – the first enclosure contained red pandas – which look like large raccoons – and three were out wandering in the afternoon heat and another was lying on the verandah. We were all pleased to see these animals and felt it vindicated our choice of the zoo. But then David called us all to the real panda enclosure where a panda was lying on his back outside his cave munching on branches of bamboo. There are five pandas in this zoo and apparently no one has seen one for several weeks! So we were really, really lucky. After a few minutes the panda sat up, looked around and wandered back into the cave. If we had been a few minutes earlier or later, we probably wouldn’t have seen him The other four pandas were safely ensconced in their caves, away from the oppressive heat. (Yet again the phrase “Mad dogs and Englishmen” came to mind.

We wandered around some other enclosures for half an hour or so and were lucky enough to see a couple of hippos come up from the shallow depths of their pool for air and several sets of monkeys who were the only ones with energy to scamper around their cages.

At the end of the zoo walk was an Art Gallery. One of the local artists attached to this gallery gave a talk about Chinese Art techniques and we wandered around while some inevitably purchased pictures. Whist waiting for negotiations to be finalized, Lei painted some of our names on rice paper. He just picked up a brush, mixed the ink, dipped in the brush and painted the complicated Chinese characters that made up some of our names. He had learnt the art from his Grandfather about ten years ago, and was really proficient. It was a nice keepsake of our trip.

We were then taken to see a very poor community of this city. Chongqing is the largest city in China (surprisingly – we all thought it was Beijing). It has a population of 31 million and is spread over an area of 470 kms by 450 kms, covering 82,000 sq kms altogether– needless to say there are about 40 something administrative regions or provinces within this autonomous governing area. The city is built over a very hilly area – consequently there are not bikes here, as Davy told us at least 20 times (he has learnt his speel by heart and if interrupted, he has to try and remember where he had got to, and often he had to go back and start the topic again – so “no bkes in Chongqing” twenty times). The traffic is usually jams up easily in the week, but on a Saturday it is slightly more sane – only just! There is a large population of “stick men” – these are farmers who, when their crops are not productive, come into the city to make money. They carry a thick bamboo pole or “stick” and are willing to do any work that will pay them some yuan – the boat company uses them to carry the luggage on to the boat.

The “ghetto” area we visited was built on a long steep hill. At the top wooden shacks seemed to be propping each other up, some with desperately poor shops in the their front rooms – a few items of food or household products laid out on rickety tables – not very enticing to buy. But almost all of the homes had televisions and many had microwaves and fridges. The people peered as we peered at them – it was hard to tell who was the strangest. As we progressed down the hill, the settlement improved in status – some of the buildings were brick built and there were a couple of barbers shops and clothes shops as well as food and essential supplies. Even further on a “high street” of larger shops with a wide range of goods displayed inside and out, and even a few restaurants and bars, looked almost ‘high class’ in comparison. Here the people appeared to be much younger than those at the top of the hill, and there were art and record shops and fancy goods stalls. Only in reality there was still little money.

The street ended at the River (a tributary of the Yangtze) which is extremely low at present due to the extreme weather conditions and many people were down on the sandy shore line or even bathing in the river. Normally it is not unusual for people who go swimming in the river to be drowned and float downstream!

From here we went for dinner – to a Sichuan hot pot meal – the Chinese version of a fondue. Everyone had their own pot containing two types of broth – hot and spicy and non-spicy and in the centre of the table were plates of meat, fish and a wide range of vegetables which you cooked in your bowl of broth. Probably the easiest way to get food poisoning, but we all tried the many dishes on offer and some were delicious and some not so. They also served a rice soup with weeny sticky rice dumplings, that tasted quite sweet and refreshing, and twisted biscuits that had to be cooked in the broth. The meal …. Ended with water melon – they have a glut at the moment and everywhere you go there is watermelon – in the hotels and restaurants, on the streets for sale. I think you can buy a whole one for 5 yuan.

By now it was 21.00 and we made our way to the boat – small river cruisers carrying about 140 passengers in total, moored midstream on the Yangtze. During the afternoon we had seen the huge monorail system that connects all parts of Chongqing – sort of like London Underground only, of course, much, much larger - which I would have loved to go on, but there wasn’t time. We passed the new sports complex where some of the minority sports such as football and tennis will be played at the Olympics. The stadiums looked enormous, seating over 50,000 people. There also wasn’t time to do more than skirt around the main square and shopping, hotel and bar areas of the city centre after dinner, which were all illuminated and looked very western – Davy told us that the Main Square here in Chongqing is larger than Times Square in New York and as we caught a brief glimpse of this modern centre, we could well believe him. There were lots of people just wandering around under the neon lights, as the temperatures cooled slightly to around 30 degrees C. Several of us agreed that we would have liked more time in Chongqing to explore some more – to contrast the old with the new.

Arriving at the mooring, we had to traverse the rickety gangway that bounced up and down as we plodded along with our hand luggage (including the Thai Shite) to the boat – the Victorian Empress. We are in Cabin 337 on the third deck – slightly larger than the one on the train - two single beds, a small chest of drawers and a desk with television. There is a wardrobe containing our life jackets!!! The bathroom is small, but functional – very deep small bath with shower – hopefully I won’t be able to flood this bathroom.

We attended the Director’s briefing on what’s available on the boat. After a chat with some of our group, we retired to bed to write this blog. Unfortunately we are still having trouble posting our daily scribe – we can get on to the internet, but not into the particular websites needed, either for blog or email. But we are trying.