All right, so the last time you heard from me, I was on a boat with a sucky internet connection. That was a few days ago, so let's see what I can dredge up.
That day, our shore excursion was to the Ghost City. This is a small mountain that the Buddhists believe contains that Gateway to Hell. I got my exercise, because the climb up to the top temple, where the King of Hell lives, is about 600 steps. It wasn't scary at all, just a bunch of temples and statuary depicting bad ghosts, good ghosts and assorted buddhas. It was pretty though. (Most of the group cheated by the way and paid 20 yuan [$3CAN] to use the cable car!)
We had lunch on the boat as it continued to move upstream and a bit of a break after lunch. I have to admit that I went back to our room and took a nap! The afternoon's entertainment was presentations by all of the artists on board regarding their various specialties: jade, pearls, painting, etc. However, I was there for one thing: the kites!
It was a young man (I can't remember his name, sorry!) and his family has been making kites for six generations. They hand cut and shape the bamboo and prepare the silk by painting it with multiple layers of glue, until it has a consistancy similar to paper, but infinitely more resilient. Then they paint the silk with natural dyes and glue it to the frames with tree sap. The finished products are like works of art. He took us up on the observation deck and flew some of them. The first was a dragon kite, with spinning eyes and about 30 pieces in the body, that rippled in the wind. He also had a dancing carp, that had a frame around the head, but a soft body so that it really looked like it was swimming. The last one was a fighting eagle with a wingspan of about 2 meters. In competition, they actually put claws and a steel edge on the leading wing and try to cut up each others' kites or lines. He said his family also builds one with a 5m wingspan, but it needs a ground mounted reel, because one person can't hold it! He had the eagle up and was answering questions, so none of us noticed the power lines strung across the river. Before we knew it - sproing! - his line was cut and we all watched with our hearts in our mouths and the kite drifted behind us into the river. It was awful.
I spent the rest of that afternoon trying to get a post through to you. You know how well that worked!
The next day we disembarked in Chongqing. This is the biggest city in China by population: 30 million. However, they don't really define a city quite the way we do, so that actually includes about 8 million "urban" folks and the rest are farmers. It's still ridiculously big though. :) We went to the city zoo here to see the panda bears and the "red pandas" which we just as cute and fuzzy as you could hope. We also walked through "Old Town", which is an area being preserved by the government - partly for tourism and partly to leave the older generation some place that they are comfortable. If you've been to any substantially sized, reasonably old China Town in NA, it's was reasonably familiar. Tiny alleys with cramped stalls and everything out on the street for sale: clothes, food, live chickens, the whole shebang. It was a bit weird to see the younger folks who can't afford to move out in their western clothes and cell phones though.
We're in Sezchuan (sorry about my spelling, it's been a long day), but so far, they've pretty much protected us from the hot stuff. We did have one chili tofu last night that was good, just inside my comfort range and lots of flavour under the heat, but mostly it's been pretty tame. After dinner last night, it was time to get on another plane. Wheeee! Fortunately, the local guide had arranged for our checked baggage to be transferred from the boat to the plane and had our boarding tickets ready to go.
So, last night we arrived in Giulong (and despite the fact that I've been looking at it all day, I'm still not sure of the spelling. Yikes!) We got up to our rooms last night at about 10:30pm and our wake-up call this morning was 6:30am. We're all starting to drag a bit. Fortunately, it wasn't a taxing morning. We went straight to the wharf to get on a river boat for lunch cruise down the Li River. This is claimed to be one of the most beautiful provinces in China and the mountains along the river were gorgeous. Like the paintings full of temples and mist - although, as I said to our national guide, they are more of foothills, than real mountains. LOL We saw lots of small villages and folks making a living from farming - rice, bananas, all sorts of stuff. Also, some crazy guys who paddled out boats made from 5 bamboo poles lashed together, who would hang on the sides of our boat and try to sell us stuff.
We're here in the season for the Cassia trees to be blossoming. They are tiny almost invisible flowers if you aren't looking for them, but the smell is pervasive. Surprisely, I find it quite pleasant, unlike most flowers. They make tea from them and also an amazingly yummy wine, somewhat reminiscent of sherry - unfortunately, we're not allowed to take any out of the country, so you'll have to come here to try it.
The cruise ended at what I can only describe as a resort town. Small, quaint streets filled with every kind of sieve to get your money: clothes, knick-knacks, tea houses and the first hostels that I've seen here. We spent a bit of time wandering around, then got back on the bus for the 1.5 hour drive back to the city. Most of us spent the time napping. This afternoon, we visited Elephant Hill Park (which is a bit of a stretch to see the elephant, but is a nice park) and another park I don't remember the name of. It's claim to fame is a hill you can climb and get a bird's eye view of the city. So that's another 324 steps (150m up approx.) to my credit. There was a guy there who runs it every day for an hour - up and down, up and down. He was on round 8 when we left! Seen from above, the city is really neat - it looks like your average urban sprawl, but with little green chunks of mountain poking up through it everywhere. Tres cool.
Anyway, I've just been told to get my butt over to the restaurant for dinner, so I should go. After dinner, we're off to watch them fishing with cormorants. More on that later.
Cheers!
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