Chongqing on the Yangtze -

Ask us;.  Are  we having fun?

 All big baggage was collected from outside our cabins last night, so we had to make do with what we could carry in our 'carry on'.   Up at 0630,  breakfast in the claustrophobic and stinking hot dining room from 0700-0800 hrs then we were motivated to leave our cabins and wait to be hereded off the boat showing appropriate gratitity to the river guides who had apparently done much but actually nothing. 

Amy ( which we suspect is not her birth name) is our Chongqing guide.   

Bridge at Chongqing - one of the many across the Yangtze -Train underneath 

300 year old temple in Chongqing and bridge in background.

Clearly Andrew has to learn to play with others in the group.

But there was a mutiny.....

It is apparent that our itinerary was not the only one of the group that did not have today's proposed tour of old stuff, a zoo (containing some Pandas) and a park..with lunch included....this was sprung on us.  

The guide Amy, did not quite know how to handle the eight Australians who did not want to visit more parks and zoos...and wanted to do what our itinerary said.. ..we decided we wanted to do our own thing, as had been described in our itinerary.  Accordingly we were dropped off at the hotel. Le Meridien, at about 11 a.m..  They even managed to get our rooms ready for us....alas not all in the same floor..,,that we can handle.

All the accommodation on this trip has been first class...this is no exception,

Chonquing is a small hamlet of 30 million people with about seven million living in the inner city area.   Once dropped off we began explorring.  The hotel is in the middle of the 'downtown' area, many people, lots of shops.  Found a wet market everything a traveller could want...

Don't  think they are for eating snails in the garden

Don't think these are pets either

Children in a basket.  Not a very commercial commodity with the recent one-child-policy

Had a wonderful time just wandering...every sub way expands into huge underground shopping/market centres....almost a city under a city....  The was also a huge outdoor area where the locals were playing cards, drinking tea, dancing, skating, and having fun....it is a Sunday.

And watching the fact man do some sort of healing trick....not quite sure what it was...although pretty sure the female who's hand he's holding was part of the gig.

Decided to go native for tea, but it was great not to have any English language menus. We were doing ok.....or so we thought until these lovely girls fellow diners cane to our aid....and we pretty much got what we had anticipated....

Having difficulty ordering .....these girls were helping us.

Shrink wrapped plate glass, bowls and chops ricks

Black peppers green peppers red peppers, ginger, and a tad of chook.

It was very very spicy.  And some.   Eyes watering nose running and mouth numb.

This is a vibrant and busy city, having monorail, railway, subway, cable car and lots of very confusing roads, but seems to get the people where they need to be