China 2007

Goodbye, Tibet. My dinner of yak meat and apple pie had settled any loose ends - say, qualms with bad food or any feeling of remoteness - that might lead me to miss the place. But no, I had just enough, for now. An early morning at the Yak Hotel brought grogginess to both my roommate and I. He showered first, couldn't find a towel for me to use, and then tried to communicate that to one of the staff. "No towel" was the only response he could get. I was surprised that the people who had spoken English so well and been so happy to assist our group members with various problems were now walls. So I used a robe.

We got out just in time, but then the hotel had to check each of our rooms for missing things, and I was immediately cornered. "Missing one towel," the receptionist snarled. Seeing as my roommate had probably lost it among his terrible mess, I tried to convince them that I didn't have anything to do with it. They wanted me to pay for it, but then they found it under his bed. I was already exhausted.

We took the new road to the airport, which cut off forty kilometers through huge tunnels and long bridges. Cars in front of us were cutting it close when they passed our slow bus, some within a few feet of oncoming traffic. We were in an airport of five or six gates, but flights constantly arriving and departing. For food I bought a cup-of-noodles - that I had to boil in water myself - at the only restaurant in the terminal. When we finally boarded, we sat on the tarmac for nearly an hour for clearance. They use the runway as a taxiway, but only two planes made any movement in that period. When we finally started off, it took a good four times longer than I had expected to get off the ground: almost a minute of rolling.

The plane smelled like cigarette smoke, as in many Chinese planes we've been on. And to make matters worse, well, my seatmate was a little obnoxious (see previous: "The Man Sitting Next to Me"). Our landing in Chongqing was surprisingly smooth.

We boarded a nice bus - two seats for nearly all of us, a relief after a cramped Tibetan bus without air conditioning - and set out for the city. Chongqing holds three nicknames: the foggy city, the mountain city, and the furnace city. We could feel the humidity and heat pressing at the cracks of every contained building, struggling to condition the air, and when we stepped outside, we nearly melted on spot. This was an excellent day, weather-wise, according to our new guide. We felt like we were dying, drowning in fact, and it could have been twenty degrees hotter.

We passed over long bridges, giving support to the second nickname of the city. More like a province, the city spread out farther than the three biggest "cities" of China combined - so the government had give Chongqing a special position as a province quite recently. The place was building up, ancient towns and buildings being turned into skyscrapers. There was a fancy monorail (which had its own huge bridge across the Yangtze) that shuttled people between the zoo, the airport, and a university town not far away. Much of the city had been destroyed in World War II, so it was a privelege that we got to see some of the older district that had remained intact.

We passed by an intricate network of manmade caves built in that same period, that the government now rented out to businesses.

We visited a museum dedicated to General Stilwell, a living model of his house and a cryptic series of pictures that explained his contribution to China. Peter, Mollie, Paulina and I snuck into the basement of the house, which was gloomy and unexciting. A few old artifacts and pictures were all there was to see.

We caught up with the group and walked across the street, to the Flying Tigers museum and art gallery. We first received a lecture on the importance of the Flying Tigers, in sketchy English. I like planes, sure, but the combination of heat and hawking was a little much. There was just too much history to see, museum after museum.

We had the usual dinner at a fancy place in the mountains, close to an older part of the city. From the restaurant, our boat - our hotel for the next three nights - was only fifteen minutes away. We walked across a plank and stepped into The Splendid China.

The lobby looked like any hotel - receptionist, business center, many shops selling clothes and souveniers. The dining hall was just through a door on that deck, the second deck. Our room keys were strange square metal pieces, and our rooms were fitted with bathtubs, desks, TVs, and minifridges, with a great big window looking out on the river. On the fifth floor, a dance floor and lounge/bar dominated the scene. On the fourth floor, where our rooms were, there was a "Captain's Pub" with an ideal outside viewing deck and relaxing inside game room. Peter, Gina and I climbed to the highest deck to watch the ship depart, wary of its enormous horn - but it didn't leave until nearly 5 in the morning, as we were fast asleep. We woke to the rocking of the ship and an earthquake of switching motors as it turned in the narrow channel.