We were awake fairly early this morning to finish the last of our packing and so I could take a few photos as we approached our final destination on the Yangtze - Chongqing. Chongqing can either refer to the city (population c8.5M) or to the municipality which is the largest of the four in China (pop c.30M). The buildings really are quite futuristic.
We moored up next to these monstrosities.
I was really surprised to see someone swimming - or maybe he was drowning - there was a lot of large shipping around. I wonder what he had strapped to his back - weights or a life-raft?
Looking over the side of our boat, I was fascinated to watch the fresh supplies being brought on board - clearly the old fashioned pole across the shoulders has its place here.
As we disembarked I got a closer look at all the produce.
Some of the officers seeing us off.
Fortunately this was the "kitchen" of a tug boat we had to walk across and not the Victoria Anna's food preparation area!
We had yet another steep climb up to road level, but once again Raymond had organised porters for our main luggage.
I was dismayed to see that Xi'An dress code is favoured here too.
Looking quite nice now the sun's up a bit.
Our of our group's luggage being carried up.
And what look like doors or windows going down.
Waiting to board the coach for a moment I thought I saw a bird; but no, it was just one of those wind up wooden things.
The next batch of pictures are through a very dirty coach window.
What a contrast between the old ........
........ and the new
The overhead railway ran very close to the road and Raymond told us to keep our eyes open as soon the tracks went into the side of a building. Yeah, of course they did!
Of course he was telling the through.
And great timing meant I actually snapped a train coming out.
Next we had a 5 hour bullet train ride to Guilin and after about a half hour drive through the traffic we arrived at yet another vast railway station. We've got more than used to these rail journeys now and although there is a lot of waiting around at stations I still think it's quicker than flying. We took it in turns to stay with the luggage whilst the other one went for a wander around. I found some escalators which gave me a great view down the huge concourse.
Again I was able to flip this one to so don't try and read the Chinese writing as it's back to front.
This looks like the side of a train carriage but it's actually the air conditioning vents in the terminal which I thought quite photogenic. And by the miracles of the internet I can tell you that the signage reads "Non-resident ID card channel. Military personnel are given priority according to
law"
And these are a couple of abstracts I saw in the ceiling and escalator areas.
I've no idea about these, but they're cute(ish).
Once onboard Raymond supervised our lunch being distributed (he's very good and as I'm the only non meat eater he always checks if things will be suitable. And for my part, I realise vegetarianism is not common here so am happy to have the same as the others but minus the meat. Today it was a salad sandwich and very nice too.
You can certainly see why they're called bullet trains.
