Chongqing: Gateway to the Yangtze

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Actually, this is not only a city, this is a municipality. The area as large as Switzerland, our guide told us, it would take roughly 16 hours to traverse from one end of the "city" to the other end. Yes, traffic is that congested here too. And one thing was conspicuously missing from the picture: there were no bicycles as this is a very hilly city.

The Chongqing municipality has developed into a heavily industrialized city, in an effort to develop the western part of China and help in the resettlement of millions as a result of the Yangtze River Dam Project.

We didn't spend much time here. We made a short visit to Eling Park and took a look at the Yangtze River model, which showed us our course for our upcoming cruise.

There is a resident painter here too, you will see him at the showroom, his paintings might look just like any other Chinese painting you see, however, the remarkable thing was, that our resident painter had no hands and used his mouth to hold the brush. You can think of a few lessons here to teach the kids... about chances and opportunities... appreciating what you do have instead of complaining about what you don't.

After a fantastic dinner with the city lights as backdrop, we headed to the docks to board our Cruise ship which would depart early the next morning.

You can follow the course of the cruise in this Map of the Yangtze River as we started downstream from Chongqing to Yichang.

Before we proceed, let me just add that summer is a very hot and humid time of the year, specially in this area. Bring mosquito repellent just in case you need it!

On to Day One of our Yangtze River Cruise!

Return from Chongqing to Yangtze River

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