Our last morning in China, was spent with a brisk five k walk around the hotel area, discovering new things all the time. One thing very noticible about Chongqing is the pollution. There is much heavy industry around the area, so the fall out, as indicated by the smut on the leaves is quite overwhelming.
The black stuff is the pollution.
Everything in town is coved by a layer of soot, and itis a constant exercise by the locals to keep things clean. The visage of the sun is also a rarity (which is why I couldn't find a pair of sunglasses to replace the ones I broke here)....they never see the sun.
But the street art and sculptures are interesting...
During the walk we heard a whip cracking sound, and then saw this fellow with some big heavy spinning tops, a piece of rope on the end of a stick. He would start the top wrapping the rope around the top, then would whack then with the rope keeping them going..... Quite interesting, and just excercise for him.
On the bus to the airport, arriving at Chongqing to find that the scanner for the passports was broken so the 200 or so characters on the ID lines had to be manually entered by the checkin staff. Then one of the group was overweight (baggage) and they wanted to argue the toss.....you just don't. That's what the scales are in the hotel rooms for.
As with any airport world wide, prices are extravagant...a cup of coffee at one shop was $21.72.... Didn't go there.....but even paying $7.00 hurts......but we have to use all our yuans less than the 100 Mao, as we can't exchange notes less than that.
Two hour(ish) flight to Guangzhou then wait for a bit for a flight to Melbourne....or not
On our way home...and some sun.......if this missive is found with our belongings, Andrew is the one with the pink and white elephants round his neck
Guangzhou airport is appalling. There is obviously a problem with air conditioning keeping things cool. It would have been 25 deg and 80% humid all through the terminal. The departure lounge A05 is downstairs and somewhat like a cattle yard.....pending getting on a bus to our flight.
Highlights....
First would have to be the Great Wall in the snow...
Then...the city of Xian, such beauty, clean, and colourful.
The Terra Cotta Warriors - although not as vibrant and colourful as we expected.
The Yangtze - particularly above the Three Gorges Dam- the scope and expanse of the works and co-ordination that would have had to take place to make this happen would have been beyond anything we could understand. That 300 ks upstream they still had to move whole cities and build from scratch new ones, is amazing. Could have never happened in a democratic country.
The number of Chinese people here is amazing....more than in Bendigo.
The traffic is not as bad as in other Asian cities/ countries...inter city transport seem not to be a big ticket item.
The accommodation was top class. Very much not what we are used to, nor would want to do all the time, as it ends to remove you from the local peopl. If we had purchased it independently would have cost us the entire value of the tour package.
The local people. The ones we met were plesant, helpful, accommodating, and willing to share their stories.
The SNA tour group we went with were a good bunch. Present company excluded;they weren't whingers, they were punctual, they coped with present company, they were fun. interesting and generally well travelled. The ones who could have been problematic left the tour to go in other directions early on.
The guides we had were top class: they were funny, entertaining, very knowledgeable about China, and prepared to share. Henry in Xian would have been the best.
Lowlights
The still repressive govt control of information which meant that many 'open source' internet services are blocked...
That the tour company couldn't warn us to develop contingencies for altnative communications before the tour.
Being taken to shop.....it is apparent that there is some form of gratuity to the company when purchases are made....and the reality (surprisingly) is that things are not really that cheap in China... Who'd have thought it.
The food....certainly feel that we were taken to experience the food that they expected we westerners would cope with....some of the places we were taken to, were downright bland. The boat food was horrid...fried, fatty, and repetitive.
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