Chongqing & part one of the Three Gorges boat trip..

Chongqing: Another huge city with another huge population 5.5 million. We stayed at a Youth Hostel near the banks of the Yangtze where we were picking up a local domestic boat in a few days time. We met a great Dutch Couple, Joanna & Jerome with whom we spent a couple of late evenings watching a few footee games over more than a few beers. As we were staying in the old part of the city our place was one of the few remaining constructed upon wooden stilts, it looked a bit out of place against the backdrop of newer monolithic concrete slabs.

We ate mostly from the numerous street vendors though at first all we could find were variations on the theme of Pigs noses, Pigs ears, pigs intestines, pigs tails and an assortment of other strange fatty looking lumps of something. Luckily we found a small stall that had a few dishes written by hand in English and we had a really great meal and a few beers.

The City of Chongqing is all ups and downs, lots of steep paths that can easily disorientate. City centre is really modern and has all the trappings of any western city, KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks on many streets as well as a good mix of traditional "hotpot" outlets.

After two days here we boarded our 3 Gorges Luxury Cruiser for 4 days on the Yangtze , being a domestic boat the term Luxury has a slightly different meaning, it means it floats and has a crew and you have a cabin. On board we met Catherine & Rudi who were returning home from 3 years in Japan. They were a great laugh and our evening games of cards and dice over a few beers soon attracted the attention of the local tourists. Our first stop on our Cruise was to Fengdu, "The Ghost City". Set on a hillside it was a modern but slightly run down attraction with a really silly "ghost town" area that was so naff it was funny. The rest of Fengdu was OK as there were enough good views and temples to compensate for the Ghost City. The next day we sailed through the first of the 3 Gorges and took a smaller boat to explore the 3 little gorges ( shown on part 2 of this blog )

Local Chongqing beer.

Linda at the food stalls... notice the two empty bottles already, I think she has a problem this woman.

Nice looking and tasty Tucker !

Chongqing City Centre.

All Aboard the Yan Yung, here is the sun deck.

And here is Linda with yet more beer on the sun deck.

Note the minamalist decor ?

Free bird food with every beer.

Pretty night boats take tourists on an evening cruise.

That's our Boat.

Fengdu Ghost City. Hill side Buddha .

Fengdu Ghost City.

Temple entrance Fengdu Ghost City.

Rooftops

No comment.

Incense burner.

Another rooftop.

Temple at the Fengdu Ghost City.

Pagoda and Linda.

Lion Guardian.

More rooftops.

Flower.

This is where it was supposed to get scary..

Worried yet ?

Linda walks fearlessly into the jaws of hell ..

The jaws of hell.

Real scary huh ?

Yes that's Linda having her head cut off.. he wishes!!

Back to the boat for more cruising... that's ours on the right, the nice one is a real tourist class boat.. I think Linda is debating whether to jump ship.

End of part 1 .. Blog continues in part 2 !