myrainasia

Back at the internet because I am trying to change my flight out of China.  Unfortunately, Egyptair has yet to respond to my inquiry and they don’t have an office in Shanghai.  They do have an office in Beijing, but if I wait until I get to Beijing it won’t be worth making the change.

So I have some time to finish Yangshuo and the Yangtze River cruise.

Yangshuo was just as charming as promise.  It’s a complete tourist town- well, at least a large chunk of it is.  These artificial tourist towns or tourist enclaves (Vang Vieng in Cambodia, Nha Trang in Vietnam and Kho San Road in Bangkok spring to mind) have their pluses and minuses.  On the minus side, the “real” traveler knows this is an artificial set up that doesn’t or shouldn’t qualify as seeing the world.  On the plus side, they feel soooo comfortable.   People speak at least some English, the menus offer western food, often in language that actually lets you know in advance what you will be eating (BTW- pizza is a word that never gets mangled, although the options for what you can have on your pizza vary widely), and you meet oodles of other travelers with whom you can swap travel info and companionship.

Yangshuo is a tourist town, albeit one with Chinese tourists as well as Western ones,  nestled in this gorgeous physical setting.  There is a tourist office/travel agent on every corner offering various and sundry tours around the area.  I found a charming travel agent and made my first booking- a ticket to the Impressions show that is performed every night in Yangshuo (and employs at least half the town).  It was created and directed by Yang Zhimou, the famous Chinese film director.  It is performed on a small lagoon (seats are on land) and consists of various different scenes, most but not all involving small boats of some sort.  Best I can describe is Cirque de Soleil on water with less acrobatics,  more singing, and important lighting.  (You can see my photos of this and I think at least one of the videos actually uploaded.)  Very trippy and I enjoyed it immensely.  I also really enjoyed getting into an air-conditioned minivan for the 5 minute ride back into town.

The next day I took the full day tour to the terraced rice fields at Longsheng.  Lots of climbing up steps but totally worth it.  (Again, see the photos.)  Until the rain started during lunch.  The rain stopped after lunch which initially seemed like a stroke of good luck.  Ultimately  it turned out that the skies were just taking a breather between an easygoing Round 1 and the much more impressive Round 2 which hit after lunch as we were nearing the top of the mountains.  I, in my wisdom, declined the purchase of an umbrella (mine was comfortably sitting in our minibus at the foot of the mountain) or poncho, thinking that the rain would not last long.  Shmuck!  By the time I realized that I really should have bought an umbrella or poncho I was soaked to the bone and decided that, having reached 100% saturation, there was no point in buying either now.  Little did I realize that my plastic-seeming tote bag (purchased quickly in Hong Kong when my leather tote from home gave up the ghost) was completely un-waterproof.  I stuck a plastic bag over my head, which amused the locals greatly (or maybe it was the fact that I looked like I was entering a wet T shirt contest), and pretty much swam down the 8000 or 9000 steps, through torrents of muddy water,  to our pick up point below.  At least my $2 tire-soled Thai flip flops provided good traction and held up well.  This was the first time in my Asian travels that I asked the driver to please turn off the A/C.  When I got back to my hotel  (and, by the way, the rain had missed Yangshuo which was about 3 hours away) I had to blow dry everything.  This included a page by page effort on my passport which I essentially melted.  (Those blue covers are not nearly as hardy as they look!) 

Could have spent a lot more time exploring the sights around Yangshuo, but time was (and is) of the essence so, the next day I flew to Chongqing to organize my Yangtze River cruise.  Had pre-booked my hotel and was really happy with my choice.  The #1 most comfortable bed I have had in Asia.  You could even bounce on the bed without breaking every bone in your lower back.  Breakfast was included but it turned out to be Chinese breakfast only.  No coffee and foods that look more appropriate to me as dinner options. 

Chongqing is yet another enormous Chinese city with a population in the multi millions.  More huge skyscrapers, lots more neon, and apparently a whole lot of money because every name brand I could think of was well represented (Gucci, Prada, Rolex,……)  And there was coffee once I got into the center of town (although paying Starbucks prices for instant coffee with coffee creamer is still hard to accept even if necessary for an addict like myself).  Didn’t really see Chongqing because I was busy trying to get a cruise ticket.  Started off at the port which was a block away from my hotel.  There are a hundred little travel agents selling the Yangtze cruises, almost none of whom speak English.  The one that did informed me that he only took cash.  Since the cruise costs at least $400 to $500 for 3 nights (and, once again, it seems everything is negotiable), and the ATMs will not disperse that much money in one day, this did not seem very doable.

I left the travel agent and took off for the Inter Continental hotel which, I figured, had to have a booking office with an agent who spoke English.  It did and Yu Din (my spelling) spent the better part of a morning practicing her English with infinite patience and good will and we got it all done.  Unfortunately, my departure choices were 9 pm that evening (I had prebooked 2 nights in Chongqing and had hoped to see at least a little of the city) or Sunday morning (which meant booking a third night in Chongqing).  I opted to lose the $23 and take off.  Yu Din also booked my flight from Yichang (the cruise terminus) to Shanghai.  I wanted to fly to Xi’an, which was a whole lot closer to Yichang, but there were no flights.  Since flying domestically here is quite reasonable, I decided to hit Xi’an after Shanghai.  And then I went to scurry around Chongqing for the rest of the afternoon and prior to my 7 pm pick up.

I am now, apparently, blogging with a vengeance.  I am going to quit here since I did not see anything I wanted to see yesterday in Shanghai and the Yangtze River will just have to wait.

Tags: 1, China, Chongqing, Yangshuo, Yangtze River cruise

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 9:42 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.