CHONGQING - Chongqing is an interesting city. It is built on the steep banks of the Yangtze River, which means that navigating the streets means some serious uphill or downhill walking. Luckily, the city has installed a few devices to ease the burden. For the cost of only a few Canadian cents you can ride one of the longest escalators I've ever seen in my life. Hong Kong has a similar escalator helping people up the hill to the Mid-Levels, but they're built in a series. This one is so long it's hard to see the end when you get on. Oh yeah, it's super-steep too.
The May Day holiday has washed out my plans for meeting up with some people here. My translator's gone for a week and I can't even get anyone on the phone at the environmental organization. Thus, I've spend the last few days checking out this city that is a real stranger to foreign visitors. Actually, many foreign visitors pass through because this has traditionally been the starting point for those wishing to take a cruise down the Yangtze River and have a gander at the Three Gorges on the way (with Yichang or Wuhan being the typical end of the trip). But because most people book their trip as a package (i.e., from Toronto you get a ticket that includes a flight to Chongqing, an night in a five star hotel, the boat trip down the river and then a flight back to Shanghai or wherever), there is little spill-over into the real city.
Like many other places in China there is remarkable disparity between rich and poor here. This morning I had a coffee in a fancy mall cafe that cost me the equivalent of 4 Canadian dollars. Later in the day I stopped by a Muslim roadside restaurant and had an amazing bowl of spicy noodle soup for the equivalent of about 70 Canadian cents. I think what is most remarkable about the have/have not dichotomy in China is proximity. Take, for example, the five-star Marriott hotel here in town. If you walk into the lobby you would have no clue that you were in central China. Towering ceilings and a marble check-in counter are exactly the same as you'd find in London or New York. However, as soon as you walk out the front door, you're confronted with broken sidewalks and people selling strange meats in the noon-day sun. Wealth doesn't seem to take root in a specific neighbourhood here, it seems like more of a shot-gun effect.
While the city has little to offer the visitor - particularly the non-Chinese visitor - I've managed to find a few things to do. I've found that the best way to get around town are on motorcycle taxis. They are admittedly dangerous - particularly given the way they drive here and the fact that helmets for passengers don't exist - but it's great for getting a good view of the city.
I found myself drinking tea in a Buddhist temple today. Hardly anybody speaks English here, so if someone has had a few classes, they're pretty anxious to have someone to practice with. Sometimes this can be a problem (like in Shanghai, where prostitutes are now posing as English students), but today it was an easy way to get a free cup of tea and learn something about the city.
Later on, I took my chances on a scary-looking cable car that crosses the Yangtze River. I must say that I don't have much faith in maintenance of vehicles and public infrastructure and I really had to convince myself that this would be a good idea. Not only is the cable car extremely high off the ground, but they also pack people into it with little regard for comfort. Not to mention the fact that it was almost 40 degrees Celsius today and the cable car has no air conditioning. Nevertheless, there really isn't much else to do here in Chongqing, so I did it anyways.
Tomorrow I'm off to Chengdu in Sichuan. I'm looking forward to the cooler temperatures and delicious food. I have plans to meet up with a professor there who is a specialist in the environmental health of the Yangtze River. I hope he's not away on vacation too. I haven't been able to track him down yet.
A.
The May Day holiday has washed out my plans for meeting up with some people here. My translator's gone for a week and I can't even get anyone on the phone at the environmental organization. Thus, I've spend the last few days checking out this city that is a real stranger to foreign visitors. Actually, many foreign visitors pass through because this has traditionally been the starting point for those wishing to take a cruise down the Yangtze River and have a gander at the Three Gorges on the way (with Yichang or Wuhan being the typical end of the trip). But because most people book their trip as a package (i.e., from Toronto you get a ticket that includes a flight to Chongqing, an night in a five star hotel, the boat trip down the river and then a flight back to Shanghai or wherever), there is little spill-over into the real city.
Like many other places in China there is remarkable disparity between rich and poor here. This morning I had a coffee in a fancy mall cafe that cost me the equivalent of 4 Canadian dollars. Later in the day I stopped by a Muslim roadside restaurant and had an amazing bowl of spicy noodle soup for the equivalent of about 70 Canadian cents. I think what is most remarkable about the have/have not dichotomy in China is proximity. Take, for example, the five-star Marriott hotel here in town. If you walk into the lobby you would have no clue that you were in central China. Towering ceilings and a marble check-in counter are exactly the same as you'd find in London or New York. However, as soon as you walk out the front door, you're confronted with broken sidewalks and people selling strange meats in the noon-day sun. Wealth doesn't seem to take root in a specific neighbourhood here, it seems like more of a shot-gun effect.
While the city has little to offer the visitor - particularly the non-Chinese visitor - I've managed to find a few things to do. I've found that the best way to get around town are on motorcycle taxis. They are admittedly dangerous - particularly given the way they drive here and the fact that helmets for passengers don't exist - but it's great for getting a good view of the city.
I found myself drinking tea in a Buddhist temple today. Hardly anybody speaks English here, so if someone has had a few classes, they're pretty anxious to have someone to practice with. Sometimes this can be a problem (like in Shanghai, where prostitutes are now posing as English students), but today it was an easy way to get a free cup of tea and learn something about the city.
Later on, I took my chances on a scary-looking cable car that crosses the Yangtze River. I must say that I don't have much faith in maintenance of vehicles and public infrastructure and I really had to convince myself that this would be a good idea. Not only is the cable car extremely high off the ground, but they also pack people into it with little regard for comfort. Not to mention the fact that it was almost 40 degrees Celsius today and the cable car has no air conditioning. Nevertheless, there really isn't much else to do here in Chongqing, so I did it anyways.
Tomorrow I'm off to Chengdu in Sichuan. I'm looking forward to the cooler temperatures and delicious food. I have plans to meet up with a professor there who is a specialist in the environmental health of the Yangtze River. I hope he's not away on vacation too. I haven't been able to track him down yet.
A.
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