Big, Big City

I had always wanted to visit Chongqing, one of the largest cities in the world, but not truly ranked as such because it's its own province. It weighs in at almost 32 million people and I figured this would be as good a place as any to visit to try and cure my agoraphobia. For some reason, I'm only agoraphobic in the U.S, and never abroad. It's not that far from Chengdu, where I was staying, so I couldn't justify flying there. I decided to take the bus just for the experience. The bus was a little rough, but it was air conditioned and I got a good seat. A cute girl sat next to me and her friend sat in the row behind us. With her Mao hat on she sort of reminded me of the woman in David Bowie's China Girl video. As I had just been on that highway while traveling to a remote Tibetan community (see photos in earlier post) a few days earlier, I was not real interested in watching the scenery go by out the window again. So I got out my Sudoku book and went to work. My grandmother always told me to never go anywhere without a book and that's some of the best advice I've ever received. My friend in Chengdu, Dove, had given me Dan Brown's Deception Point in exchange for The DaVinci Code. But I was saving that for when I was really jonesing for a book. (I loved it!)

After the girl next to me seemed to run out of things to talk about with her friend behind us, I noticed she turned her attention to my Sudoku book. She'd obviously never seen anything like it before and was soon suggesting to me where to put certain numbers. My Mandarin is just good and bad enough to start a conversation and then frustrate all parties. But Sudoku is all about numbers and I can count well enough in Mandarin. While I knew most of her suggestions were wrong, it was impossible to explain to her how or why. She spoke a little English, but barely more than I did Mandarin. Her name was Candy (sure it was) and she was from Guangzhou, a city I had spent some time in and liked a lot. Correction - she went to school there and was really from Beijing, where I had not yet been, but was going soon.

After a while I just handed her the book and stared out the window as we got to an area I had not yet seen. She methodically went to work on the easier puzzles while I occasionally made suggestions and tried to explain my reasoning. After two hours we were bonafide friends. When we pulled into a rest stop, she told me to stick with her friend and her. They bought me a bottle of water and some food, declining my offer to pay. After that we spent the next few hours trying to tell each other about ourselves. Once we arrived in Chongqing, we exchanged cell phone numbers and agreed to meet up later that night.

I was meeting another friend (actually stranger) I had lined up as a tour guide through China Daily's BBS. Candy and her friend had other plans, and I felt alone and somewhat abandoned when they took off and I was left to fend for myself at the train station. You can't imagine what chaos really is until you've been all alone at a Chinese train station with no idea what to do.

No taxi driver would talk to me. They just didn't have the time (or patience) to deal with a foreigner. After about 15 min. of waiting in the crushing smog, heat and humidity, I finally did get one though. As soon as I knew he was taking me, I told him (in Mandarin) that I was calling my friend. I called my guide, Feng (I was thankful she hadn't taken an Anglicized name), and then handed the phone to the driver. Feng told him where to take me, which was a very nice and cheap hotel (The Square Hotel, around $32 a night) she had lined up for me right downtown. Once I'd gotten settled in the hotel, Feng came to meet me. I was a little surprised by how young she looked and then totally floored when I heard her perfect, accentless English. She was 19 and had gone to high school in Singapore. If you've done some traveling in China's interior, you know English is a rarity there. Feng's English was as good as mine. Unreal.

So we had a fine, dirt cheap dinner in what looked like a mall food court. Gawd, was it good. Chongqing, like Chengdu, is known for its incredibly spicy, Sichuan-style food. It did not disappoint.



Since Feng was only 19 and still lived at home with her folks, she could not stay out late. When she told me this, I was especially thankful I had gotten Candy's phone number. Feng had to go home, but it was only about 8:00pm. So I called Candy up. She said she and her friend (I don't think I ever got her friend's name, but she didn't speak a word of English anyway) were on the riverwalk at a bar. I gave the phone to a taxi driver and she told him where to bring me. What a thrilling ride over the Yangtze to that part of town. The spaghetti-junction of highways was lit by neon lights, each a different color according to the road. It was so cool. And sure enough, I found Candy and her friend sitting outside a bar along the Yangtze, across from which was the Chongqing skyline. It's BIG.



They were playing Chinese (what else?) checkers. I hung with them there for a while and had a few local beers. Then we all decided to go for foot massages. This is one my favorite things to do in China. For a pittance, perhaps $5, you get 60-90 minutes of pure heaven. These places are ubiquitous, but are kind of difficult for unaccompanied foreigners, since the folks who work there are almost all kids from the countryside who don't speak a word of English. In fact, their rural dialects are often unintelligible even for the native city-dwellers. I got a foot massage almost every night I was in China, but only did so once without a Chinese friend to help me out.



The next day Feng and I met up to go bumming around town. I had some shopping to do for friends and family back home. You probably know that in China no price is ever firm. It's all negotiable. And this is where it's so important to be able to count well in Mandarin. Looking like I do, I was an inviting target for all street vendors wanting to get full asking price. However, I had gotten pretty good at haggling and only got ripped off the few times I was too lazy or unwilling to argue or haggle. They say you can feel very proud if you come away paying what a Chinese person would pay. And I think I usually did so. That night, however, I did get taken to the cleaners, relatively speaking.



I had gone on a very long walk to do some exploring. I sort of wanted to get lost, find an Internet cafe to email some folks back home and then find my way back to the hotel. Well, lo and behold, after a few kilometers, I found myself near the train station again, this time around 10:00pm. It was deserted and there were no taxis to be found. Still, I decided to walk to where the cab line usually was, figuring a passing taxi would see the white guy and assume he could charge me double. And I was right.

A motorcycle taxi approached me. Wearing shorts and a golf shirt, I knew this was a dangerous way to go, not to mention the chaotic driving in China's cities. Chaos IS the rule there. But what the hell? Why not? I told the guy the name of my hotel and he motioned for me to hop on, no helmet offered, of course. What a ride! We went through a few traffic circles, a tunnel, over a few potholes, up some hills, around some twisties, pure adrenaline. When we got to my hotel, the fare was exactly twice what I had paid for the taxi there the previous day. But what's $2.50 when you're on vacation? I was too lazy to argue, but did comment that it seemed expensive. The driver said, "Yes, it is", smiled and went on his way.

The next morning it was raining pretty hard and, of course, I had no umbrella. I was jonesing for coffee, and while I never ever touch western food while in China, I draw the line at giving up coffee. Starbucks is just as expensive there as it is here, but I was always happy to pay it.....because coffee in Chinese hotels SUCKS. As I walked out of the hotel and surveyed the rain, a group of old ladies selling umbrellas rushed me. I guess I looked like an easy target. Silly me, I didn't realize they were all selling their own umbrellas and not working together. I could have easily bargained with them and gone with the lowest bidder. But I just went with the first one and got gouged at a whopping $2.

Later that day I met up with Candy and her friend for lunch, which was some of the best hot pot I'd ever had. Hot pot is Chengdu's signature dish and while there I'd had it sometimes for lunch and dinner in the same day. I was curious to see if it was any different in Chongqing. It was better!