25th April – Jinsha to Chongqing

We woke again to another wet & misty day, which makes the mountains look quite magical, it’s cold outside but we are quite cosy in our little MG. We have about 320 km to drive mostly on the highway so we can arrive at hotel in Chongqing for lunch.

Chongqing is a huge city with the municipality having a population of approximately 33 million people.  We have to drive across a magnificent bridge over the Yangtse river to get to our hotel.

We arrive in good time to the hotel, but we have to drive down to a road on a lower level closer to the Yangtse River to get into the car park.  When we finally negotiate the traffic in this large city we park in an underground car park that has a highway directly above us & we park next to one of the huge pylons that hold it up.  We are grateful to get the cars under cover as it is still raining, so we can unpack the cars in a leisurely manner.

Once we settle into our rooms, the rain stops and we set off to explore part of the city with Peter & Paula, making Starbucks our first stop for a coffee to give us a caffeine boost.

First we pass the art gallery, a magnificent modern building on the way to the old Buddhist Temple & Monastery, that has been dwarfed by modern skyscrapers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The temple is undergoing restoration with the ceilings and walls being painted in vibrant blues, greens & red and sparkling chandeliers hung up.

This is an operational temple & monastery with the monk’s quarters upstairs.

Not far from the walls of the temple, a new building is being constructed, no doubt another skyscraper.

In the arhat hall, which is a separate building at the rear of the temple complex, there are 500 arhats, which are statues of men who have attained Nirvana.  Some of them looked angry, fierce or mad, not quite what I would’ve imagined, but I guess the road to Nirvana is not an easy one.

We continued on to the port area where the Yangtse and Jiaing Jang rivers meet on the point. We then head back to the area near our hotel, that  has a view over one of the bridges across the Jiaing Jang river.

Tonight we explore the market area under hour hotel which has a fabulous selection of food to buy.  We purchase some sweet slices that are made with sesame seeds, sesame paste &  nuts & they are delicious.

We walk through the market into a cave & behind a waterfall to get to a restaurant that overlooks the river.

Once again the people in the restaurant don’t speak English, so with the help of Google translate and much pointing at what other people are eating, we successfully order a beef & pork hotpot which is delicious.  The staff are most attentive & bring us aprons to put on as we seem to be slopping the broth over ourselves.  As we’re having dinner it gets dark and most of the buildings in the inner city area light up with bright colours, it’s quite beautiful. A lovely way to end a busy day.