Chongqing – down by the riverside

Statue at Arhat Temple

Chongqing is the starting or finishing point for many a Yangtze river cruise, so although we’ve decided to skip the cruise in favour of indulging fully in the delights of Halong Bay in Vietnam, we thought we’d stop by for a couple of days to witness the mighty river, and explore the heights (and lows) of this hilly city. As ever in China, we hit our first hurdle as soon as we left the train station – where was this local bus that the hostel speaks of? While Bradley scouted the area to find it, I settled down to watch our bags and eat the leftover oranges from our short train journey. A woman came past begging with her little boy and I gave them an orange each, which they seemed first baffled by, then delighted with – at least I think they did! It’s hard to know what to give sometimes but we seem to get a better response when we give food instead of money, so it makes it easier (if a little dictatorial – you will eat oranges!) to give something helpful to people in need here. 

Bradley finally found the bus and we made the one hour journey to our hostel at the other side of town. In many ways the location was great – right by the river and near to the Chongqing boat cruises (you can do a short evening cruise – more on that later) but in other ways it is a terrible location because the entrance is hidden behind a host of packing crates - we were within moments of giving up on finding it at all before we realised we were right next to it! The hostel is not just by the river, it is by the docks – so there’s also non-stop traffic along the waterside and up and down the hills to the roads. The place was actually quite lovely though once we got settled in, and even though we were in dorm beds, they each had curtains so it was like being in our own private bubbles. 

We really didn’t have very long to explore Chongqing as we only had two nights there, so as soon as we had dropped out bags off, we headed out again. Right next to the hostel there are some steep cliff steps, which are the quickest way by far of reaching the main part of the city. The whole city is very hilly and it’s good exercise trekking the streets! 

 

The first stop was Arhat Temple, a peaceful complex right at the heart of the area we were staying. As well as a quiet courtyard (the outside noise feeling muted somehow, even though we were surrounded by main roads) the Temple had an amazing hall filled with terracotta Arhat statues, or statues of people who have achieved enlightenment and therefore pass to nirvana after death. 

Apparently there were 500 statues – they lined the walls and created a network of aisles within the hall to fill the space. Each Arhat looks different, and it’s easy to start imagining the lives of the Arhats - they look like real characters!

As Chongqing is so hilly and has a massive river winding through its core, there are two cable cars linking the heights on one side to the lower ground on the other side of the river. We took the main cable car across the river (and back again) purely for the city view (a bargain at the princely sum of 50p). It seems to be a popular form of public transport as well as a scenic way to travel – getting from A to B by bus would take forever, especially as  a lot of the bridges that will be crossing the river are still being built, so the cable cars must be a huge help to the locals. 

From the cable car you can see the fast-paced growth of the city in stark contrast to older buildings – as we’ve often seen in China, the city is evolving at a rapid rate, but this is the first time we’d seen high rises alongside such old and damaged buildings. 

Some of these older stilt buildings are falling apart and at some point developments may steamroller through these poorer areas, but they also house thriving communities and the local culture and history that the modern city lacks. 

We took a video of the trip back across the river – it starts out a bit boring, but it’s worth hanging on until near the end if you’re interested in seeing this old, still-standing stilt housing.

We may have been sacrificing the big Yangtze cruise, but we decided we’d still do the evening boat trip that Chongqing is famous for, so we headed back past our hostel to check out the cruise ships. 

We’d been reliably informed that the boat to go for had a giant crown on it (yes, it was as gaudy as it sounds!) but we couldn’t see this boat at first so we went with another one instead. This may have been a mistake, as nobody spoke English on our boat, and there was no English menu, so our romantic dinner on the river fell through (bar a plate of peas we managed to order as a snack) and we had blaring Chinese music ringing in our ears for much of the journey. 

However, once we finally set sail it was a pleasant way to spend an hour, and we had a comprehensive tour of the river and its well-lit skyline. We eventually found our crown – the boat was hidden behind another boat, and had ‘Welcome’ written in English in neon lights on it, so maybe was the boat for us after all… we’ll never know!

We had a few free hours the next day to wander through the city centre, check out the Liberation Monument (which was surrounded by designer clothes shops, and then within 20 metres a further ring of dusty backstreets as yet untouched by Gucci et al but it’s only a matter of time) before heading back to the hostel to plan ahead to Guilin and get some work done.

Chongqing is also famous for its spicy hotpot (not quite like Betty's in Corrie!). We decided to head somewhere nearby for dinner and with the helpful notes from the hostel tried to order a local hotpot - and ended up with a table full of food, possibly one dish of which was the hotpot... It was pretty tasty though - except for the egg mash goo on the right there (Bradley loved that enough for the both of us)! All this is what you get when you have a list of ingredients written down in Chinese in your hand, and then get quizzed on them (in Chinese) without having a clue what's going on.

On our final day, we tried to get across to the Theatre by the other city cable car but it was closed, so instead we did a final city walk before the rain came down, leaving us with some free time to go food shopping for the overnight train we had that night (20 hours!) and to catch up with the blog. Twenty hours on a train – that felt pretty daunting! But Guilin sounded fantastic so it seemed like a worthwhile price to pay.

View 2012 Journey in a larger map