From Yangshuo to Chongqing

Hello!

I'm in Shanghai now. I arrived on Saturday (although I thought it was Friday - how your mind plays tricks on you when you don't have a routine anymore) and I think I'll probably move on up to Beijing tomorrow night or Friday night. I'll take the overnight train because I feel I've been getting a bit too much sleep lately and deserve a night in a cramped bunk with a train that stops and starts every 10 minutes with a jolt and bang. I can't wait.

Anywho, the last week or so has been quite an experience and I've been checking out some of the real China and not the Chinese Great Yarmouth equivalent of Yangshuo - not that I'm bitter about the place putting me in the hospital or anything, but it's aimed very much at western tourists so everything there is nice and easy and you're not really seeing much of what China is really like.

So, I left Yangshuo on the bus to go to a place called Luizhou where I was going to get an overnight train to Yichang on the Yangzi river which is the site of the Three Gorges Dam project. From Yichang I was planning on getting a hydrofoil up the Yangzi river to Chongqing and from there I was going to fly to Shanghai.

The bus journey was interesting because along with the usual constant blasting of the horn and various diversions through fields and rivers to avoid wayward cyclists we also had the joy of a Chinese karaoke video, presented at an ear-splitting volume and featuring the Chinese equivalents of Cliff Richard and Gareth Gates. I quickly lost the will to live within 5 minutes but luckily I managed to punch myself unconscious so the journey passed without incident. Actually, the last bit was a mild exaggeration and I spent the journey looking out of the window at some of the rural little towns we passed through. People just sat and stared at the bus as it went passed - one or two people noticed me on the bus and started at me instead. The little towns were these dusty communist little towns with massive TV towers and bizarrely one of them, which only consisted of a street or two had a giant Space Needle thing like in Seattle.

Once we arrived in Luizhou the driver claimed we were at the train station and told us to get off. We (a German couple on the bus and myself) were pretty sure we weren't at the train station but the guy didn't speak English and was adamant that we were there so we got off, figuring we could get a taxi if we couldn't find it.

As soon as we stepped off the bus people from across the street started shouting and laughing and pointing and taxi drivers were tooting their horns at us and things. My mind recalled a sentence in my guidebook saying that foreigners were a novelty in Luizhou and it looked like we were the main event for the evening. It was quite unsettling but I just tried to enjoy it and gave them a wave and a smile. We set off to find the station (passing shops selling roasted dog - lovely) but there was no sign of it - I tried some of my fluent Mandarin on someone but that got us nothing except a puzzled look from him so we jumped into a taxi and the driver took us to the train station which was actually a good 3 or 4 miles away. Pah - next time I see that bus driver I'll register my extreme displeasure with him using the international sign of a short sharp kick to the goolies...

I was relieved to find that the station was huge because my train wasn't leaving until 11:30pm and I had visions of sitting in a dark hut somewhere in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around except the local rapist and some curious rats. Luckily the waiting room was full of people staring at us, including the guy next to us who sat for about 30 minutes with his head turned to face me and refusing to look away regardless of what I did. I gave a nod, and then a smile, and then I tried to ignore him, then I gave him a stern look and he only finally looked away when I delivered a piercing blow from my elbow to his adams apple. What a strange country.

I also got my first introduction to the delightful national pastime of spitting. It's quite extraordinary to be sitting next to some little old lady who then lets out a dramtic "hhrrrrruuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh" hacking sound and then spits the contents on the floor of the train station. To be honest, I was expecting much worse but it takes a bit of getting used to and I find it really minging. Whenever I see someone spitting I'm always tempted to go and spit on their feet or something and see how they react but I've managed to resist the temptation so far. Thankfully the Chinese government are trying to stamp it out and quite often you see people spitting into a tissue or something which is a good first step I suppose, but it'll take a while to get people to quit completely. Much like smoking, which must be the other national pastime in China since just about every man seems to smoke like a chimney. I wonder if the two facts are related?

Anyway, the train appeared and I plonked myself in my bed which was on the top bunk and out of the way of people staring at me. I was glad of the rest and slept OK until we got to Yichang 19 hours later.

When I got there, I went to what I thought was the hostel but was in fact some dodgy old hotel and I got a room there for the night which didn't have a bath or shower (which I desperately needed after a night on the train) and the toilet was just a festering hole in the ground. Not my idea of luxury, but when in China etc...

By this time it was getting dark and I wanted to get my boat ticket so I went down to the ferry terminal but it was shut so I went to get some dinner instead. It was quite a change from Yichang because nobody spoke English, despite this being a city of over 3 million people and also because people just stared at you as you walked past. Some brave ones shouted "Hello" or something at you and then giggled as you replied but most people just stared as if your fly was undone or something (and believe me - I checked. Many times!). I was starving because I hadn't managed to get any dinner last night since the train station didn't have a restaurant and I'd had to survive on Pringles and fruit for the day so I found a decent restaurant and had a bite to eat (which was very nice actually, plus they cooked it at your table and it only cost about 1 pound). Then I found an internet cafe so I fired off a few emails because I was feeling like I was on the moon or something and was feeling a very very long was from home.

When I got back to the hostel I called room service to come and fluff my pillows and tuck me in, then I ordered the continental breakfast and finally set my alarm for 7am so that I could get out of that dump as quickly as possible and sort out my boat trip.

The next morning, the town was more appealing in the hazy morning sunshine. The railway station overlooked the whole town and it looked like some old Soviet city from the 1980s. I found it quite attractive in a strange way with their old concrete buildings and long straight roads and I set off to CITS, the chinese travel people - run by the government I think - to sort out my boat trip. Initially they tried to sell me a 4 day cruise up the river to Chongqing but I didn't fancy that so I managed to book myself on a hydrofoil leaving to go to Wuzhou at 12am where I could "easily" get a bus to Chongqing. I should have known when they gave me seat number "0" that it wasn't going to be easy...

I had a couple of hours to kill so I found a bakery and devoured some cakes for breakfast and then went back to devour some more because I was still hungry. I took a wander down to the river and there were lots of old people playing badminton in the park and doing Ti Chi and stuff. I'd seen pictures of people doing this but didn't realise that they did it all over China. I was tempted to join in but all I could really do were a few moves from the Karate Kid and I didn't want to scare them so I just walked past, sharing a knowing look with some of them who realised that I was a deadly machine and had spared them.

When I got back to the travel agents they herded us onto a bus to get the hydrofoil. I thought they were going to drive us to the ferry terminal but in fact they drove us up past the dam so that we wouldn't have to go through the 10 locks to get to the correct river level. I was gutted - I really wanted to see the dam but I only got a quick glimpse as we drove past it. Mind you, that was quite enough for me to realise just how big it is - I mean, I knew it was big but the sheer scale of it took my by surprise. It's absolutely vast - a bit like standing at the bottom of the Empire State Building and looking up but it's wide as well. Very impressive. Unfortunately, it's environment impact is massive and some experts are predicting that the dam won't be strong enough to hold back the river and it'll collapse at some point. If it does, then Yichang and it's 3 million inhabitants will be washed away within 30 minutes, so I got to the front of the bus and asked the driver to put his foot down a bit.

However, if I was disappointed that I didn't get to see the dam properly then I was exhilarated with the actual trip on the river itself. I'd wanted to do this trip ever since I saw Michael Palin do it in "Full Circle" and in fact the boat trip was the initial basis for me doing this trip because I wanted to see the Three Gorges before they were flooded by the dam. The first stage of flooding took place in 2004 and the next stage is due to take place in July. The scenery was quite stunning though - the guide book said that people have found it a bit boring because they expected mile high gorges either side of them. That wasn't what we got but the scenery was really dramatic, the gorges closed in quite close on either side and it was exactly how I remember it from "Full Circle". It was fantastic and the 6 hours just flew by as I stood by the door shooting picture after picture. Of course, seat "0" didn't exist, but that's no great shock.

What was more worrying though was that there appeared to be no buses in Wuhzhou to take me to Chongqing. A friendly taxi driver pretended to take me to a bus but as we arrived at his clapped out heap of junk doing a poor impression of being a car then I shook my head and walked away. Then a bunch of about 10 or 20 taxi drivers started screaming and yelling at me - I was getting a tad concerned at this point but when I looked at them they were all laughing and giggling so it was just a bit of a joke. I thought - I mentally revised my Karate Kid moves in my head just in case. I walked past a couple of policemen and asked them were the bus was to Chongqing and they told me I'd have to walk about 5 miles into town. At this point a gaggle of Chinese taxi drivers had surrounded us and were taking part in our little conference so the policemen took me to one of the taxis and we all jumped in for a merry little excursion to the bus station.

The thought occurred to me that they could be taking me to some warehouse for their friends to give me a good doing and nick my stuff but as we pulled up to the bus station, the policemen paid the taxi driver, absolutely refused to take any money from me and pointed me to the bus station. What a nice guy! I felt a bit bad really, since I'm pretty sure he would earn a pittance and yet he was still quite happy to pay for a taxi for the "rich westerner" as I'm sure we're thought of. It's often said that the people with the least give the most and he was a prime example.

I bought my bus ticket and sat in the bus station for a couple of hours. I used my best Mandarin to ask the guy next to me where the toilet was and he seemed to understand me so we got into a little discussion where I told him that I was from the UK and that I'd come from Yichang on the boat, that the boat was very ice-cream and that the dog headphones flew from Shanghai. My Mandarin is a bit rusty.

Once I'd got to Chongqing it was getting past midnight, I was tired, very smelly and just needed to get a hotel and a bed but unfortunately I had to get a taxi from the bus station to the centre of town. I had a hotel in mind so I spoke with a taxi driver who didn't know where it was and wanted to take me to his mates place. I did what any good British person does when abroad and repeated what I wanted but louder and slower. This didn't do any good so I stabbed at the map with my finger and basically yelled at him (I'm not great when I'm tired). Incredibly this seemed to work and after what I can say with 100% certainty was the scariest taxi journey of my life, we pulled up to the hotel with smoking brakes, melted tyres, a few slow moving pensioners splattered across the bonnet and a little puddle of something wet in the passenger seat.

Well, this is turning out to be quite the epic so I'll stop here I think. Once I'm in Beijing then I'll fill you in on what I've been up to there and also in Shanghai and Chongqing.

I'm going to go and rest my weary fingers now.

Cheers,
Gregor