Another morning in a foreign city. The old, ancient capital, my first novel love. Chongqing.
It's been a foggy day when we arrived on the eerily placid train station. The CRH at 200km/h wasn't the fastest but it was sure damn well a speed bullet that ripped through the countryside and I must say, shamed a lot of its European counterparts in sense of comfort travelling. I could be staying at the Hilton of trains, that's until a chook gave out (or blew its cover?) a strange bbeeeuuurrrppppp like all chooks do when they get just frattled about anything in life.
The Yangtze mighty as it was, muddy as it definitely will be, was a calm flow of curls and waves as tiny little boats ferrying fishermen, popping through deftly like bees amidst a field of droopy poppies of old, tired looking barges. No junks, no overcrowded ports Hong Kong style but it's every bit like its smaller but funkier sister. Hilly, new condominiums sprouting out towering little pockets of old dwellings, stairs that smelled of rancid wine, dogs and the evening's oily fried up, a chess game smashed down another puck, more fruit vendors, kerosene lamps, I realised that it was already dusk. Another city came to life.
Oh yes, tacky as it was, you saw (and participated!) in the city harbour light shows, boat rides, people watching while you dug into the plastic bag for another string of cuttlefish. This thing is addictive, it's like a cocaine snack that billions of people could obtain access through those crummy shops that burst with anything from a bag of washing powder to thirty over domestic brands of those lung-combusting sticks the Chinese called cigarettes here. Come rain, hail, sun, or in this case, throw in another handful of dangerous driving, touts, mist, honks (ships included) and you have one heck of a city that sang the backup tune of its Shanghai sister. Chongqing isn't exactly smoldering like the latter, but this city has a weird way to give you a shot of adrenaline... unobstructedly observed yet stealthily. I can't complain.
The hot pot here wasn't as good as Chengdu's if I must say. I missed the pungent thickness of the bowl of sauce that I got back there. But I wasn't really not eating either. It's good, just not up there. There was a lot of night life. The main cross-section of the People's Liberation Square from the war was now a massive clot of people, cinemas, shopping arcades, old eateries, people's homes, flowers, lights, fountains, buskers, peddlers. A place you come to just blend in and not count. A place you come to carve a living so that you count.
The hostel was really, a home away from home where we unassumingly went along with what every mortal does at home: laundry, sleep, laugh, cuddle, get on with the work (!), mix and meet, eat and just, well, explore. I can't say enough how far the hostel community has come along. It's really comfort away from home, just loads spunkier than all those drabby hotels that littered along the river to attract the tour-packaged ... ahem, tourists!
We walked the city, got lost, found our strictly local hot pot shop that we had no idea what came out of the menu, endured and probably nearly got down to my knees to pray (if I could) a crazy driver ramming his gears down for four hours to visit the 800-year old relics of Dazu, and got back learning at least something old that wasn't manufactured to look old by the Government.
But the hostel's albeit pricey Bailey's did the job in winding down a day's battle of the wits, guts and glory with our prescribed driver. I had four shots. Nice.
Tonight we set sail in the Yangtze. I have no idea what's ahead and that's how I like it. I don't know but somehow the unknown gives a lot of power of imagination, opportunity and the right to make (or break). We'll be out of Wi-Fi access range. Until then, before I beep down to Houston, here's all my love and hugs.
