Cruise - Yangtze River Cruising/Disembark in Chongqing/Xi'an - Oct 24, 2007

Oct 24

Well this morning our cruise ended and we arrived in Chongqing. There was a band playing music for passengers as we exited the boat. I don't know where Phyllis came out from when she came over but we went up no more than 50 normal steps and our tour director told us that our hand luggage coul be taken directly to our bus for only one dollar a person. Piece of cake.

Chongqing surprised us. It is a mountain municipality that is always foggy. The views from the higher points should be beautiful but the local guide told us that they rarely see the sun. The number of modern skyscrapers is amazing. The construction is booming but not only here, everywhere we have been in China. Since this is a mountain municipality there are no bikes. Shanghai has been where we have seen the highest number of bikes.

Chongqing used to be the capital of China at some point. The US was an allay of China and played a significant role in the war between China and Japan.

Today we went to see the Chinese pandas. We learned that those in the US are leased on a yearly basis from China and even those born in the US are still the property of China. What we have to pay China for the lease and their maintenance it is extremely expensive. Their normal weight is ap. 300 pounds. They rarely mate and if they ever get pregnant it is not noticeable because their cubs weigh about 1 pound at birth, they are pink in color, and they look like a rat. Sometimes the mother does not even recognize it and the baby eventually die. Luckly others are better mothers.

Our flight to Xi'an is in the evening. So they took us to the Chongqing Carlton Hotel. The dinner was very good. We had a private room for 10 people. The hotel is gorgeous.

We went to the airport and the flight to Xi'an was 1.45 hs.

We immediately noticed that all expressway rail sides are lit with Neon lights. The sight is beautiful.

Our hotel is very pretty and our room and bathroom were very spacious.