Monday, September 21, 2009

New shoes, taxi hygiene and live animals











After a chaotic brekkie, we travelled through the traffic of Congquing, a mountain city which uses natural gas in all vehicles because of the hills. The view from the pagoda was lovely, as was the 3 gorges museum, an insight into what we were about to embark on. Ali bought a painting done by someone without arms, he paints with his mouth.

On the way back from the pagoda, we saw a man by the ide of the road poo-ing! It was a taxi driver and apparently it’s common!

At lunch I had a bowl of string beans (with chilli), my now favourite, and then we visited a farmers market, not to be done if you are squemish! The smell was awful, chickens packed up, live ducks in a rack, eels. I stopped to buy some shoes (which I was still superglueing every night), and we lost the guide! Luckily Lillian was with us. Jo went for a foot massage while mum, ali, Brigitte and I people watched in Starbucks.

Before getting on the boat we stopped in a super market and people went crazy buying alcohol and food as though there wouldn’t be any on the boat! There was, but it was more expensive. We went by funniular down to the board, and embarked to the chorus of a marching band while mum and I navigated the rocky steps. We were also greeted by a heat gun pointed to our foreheads. Nice.

And off we went on our Yangtze cruise.

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