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No.10 Honghuang Road,Jiangbei District, Chongqing, Chongqing Region, China
Bang Bang
chongqing
The muslim noodle restaraunt on Martyr's Tomb road was our favorite joint. But really, the best foos was to be bought from Carrefore in town.
No fingernail shavings. Another great ChongQing dish is Guo Ba Ryo Pian- a pot of saucy veggy and beef pured over a bed of rice crackers- SNAP CRACKLE POP.
Saturday, September 29th - Swanmore to Chongqing
We left home at 3:15pm and waited 1 hour at Heathrow to check in. We had a salade nicoise and boarded the Air China Boeing 747 which took off at 8:45 and
landed in Beijing on Sunday at 1pm after a miserable flight. No spirits were served and only Chinese films with partially visible English subtitles were shown on a
single screen. Headphones with listening tubes were provided. The food was also of poor quality. We were met at the airport by Sian (all but one of our guides used
an English name) who gave us our tickets for Chongqing and showed us how to get to the domestic flight and where to wait. Whilst waiting till 3:30 we spoke to a
Chinese male student who was on his way back to Shenyang(North-east of Beijing), to be with his parents for National Day which coincides this year with the
mid-Autumn festival(a rare coincidence). He showed us how he keyed in Chinese script characters into his IBM Thinkpad computer. We boarded the South
Western Airways Boeing 727 and appeared to be the only caucasians. We landed on time in Chongqing at about 5:30 and were met by Romy, another young
female guide. We noticed that the Chinese check airline baggage tags and we were now getting used to looking for the 'Welcome Mr & Mrs Lawrence' placard. We
were driven in a minibus to the Kinglead Hotel somewhere in the centre of the city which is home to 34 million people, a similar population to Canada. We dumped
our bags in our 12th floor room and went for a tour of the hotel. The bedroom is just like a Marriott's and a much higher standard than we had expected.
Our son, Stephen, would have loved the sports facilities - a 16-lane bowling alley, squash court, numerous blue table-tenis tables, saunas, snooker tables and
mahjongg and bridge rooms. Graham was invited to play table tennis which he did and after winning one point gracefully left the table to let the two occupants
continue. We were also invited to join the mahjongg game but declined.
We ate in the Radience Coffee Bar of the hotel where we dined on a Chinese buffet - clams, oysters, mussels, prawns, abalone, salmon and various meats washed
down with beer and water - all very tasty and only 183RMB. The decorations at the front of the hotel make it look like Christmas - lots of red and lights.
Monday, October 1st - The carvings at Dazu
We were awoken at 7am and went down for a buffet breakfast - bacon, sausage, omelette, orange juice and coffee plus some hot noodles, orange slices and water
melon. Romy was waiting in the lobby at 8am and we all three got into the white Toyota minibus and drove to Dazu, 160km west of Chongqing, mainly on concreted
dual carriageways punctuated by many toll booths. We passed lots of small patchworked fields, some smaller than a tennis court. They were everywhere including
steep hillsides. Irrigation systems abounded. We saw lotus flower plants growing in water as well as many rice paddy fields. Some groups of people waited for buses
whilst others cycled, drove motorbikes or walked their pigs to market or stood in the middle of the rode. Horns are used a lot. 1 million motorbikes per year are
produced by Chongqing factories.
At Dazu we walked around lots of Buddhist carvings sculpted out of the faces of cliffs. They were carved out more than 1000 years ago and had been spared the
ravages of the cultural revolution because of their remoteness. Much of their original colours is still visible. We were asked by some school girls if they could take our
photograph. Tall non-black haired white skinned people are a rarity in Dazu. We felt honoured. Everyone was very friendly, many saying 'hello' and smiling.
At noon we walked back to the minibus instead of taking one of the tricycle rickshaws driven by male or female drivers. On our way back to the town of Dazu we
stopped and walked along a narrow paved path between paddy fields to a village which consisted of a couple of stone houses surrounding a village square rather
like a farmyard. At Dazu we had lunch in a large tourist hotel. We ate bland Chinese food whilst our driver and guide sat at the next table and had frogs legs as well
as the dishes we had. Tour guides and drivers are forbidden to eat at the same table as tourists. They are supposed to eat workers meals away from the tourists. We
had mooncakes which are only eaten on National Day. They were a bit like an Eccles cake.
We got back into the minibus and returned to Chongqing where we visited an artists village set in the midst of the city close to the Jialing River. 17 artists live in the
group of houses. Many of their paintings are in museums but prints were on sale. We were given a talk by one of the artists, 80 year-old Mr Liu, who was forced to
spend the years of the cultural revolution working on a farm.
Next stop was the Hongxing Pavilion set in a park from where one could get a good view of the city and the Yangtze and Jialing rivers although slightly obscured by
the fog that continually hangs over the city - too much coal burning. In the park we saw a long mural painted by a single artist that depicted the passage of the Jangzi
through the Three Gorges.
After the park we were taken to the People's Palace (seating capacity of 5000) which one gets to by climbing a large flight of steps from the very large People's
Square. Dusk was now approaching and we pursuaded Romy and Mr Chung, the driver, to be our guests at a restaurant that served the local speciality - Chongqing
Hotpot. We all sat at a round table surrounding a bowl above a burner. The bowl was divided into two - one section had a chili soup and the other a milder version.
We selected our food from another table, some strange vegetables, lots of tripe and other offal, live eels, and noodles but we avoided the chickens feet and heads
and other similar items and cooked it in the pot.
After the meal we were taken to the quay where we clambered down many steps to join the boat - the Victoria Dolphin. The cabin is a bit small but has a television,
air conditioning, and a bathroom with a shower. We watched a video of the Three Gorges on the TV and then went to sleep.
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