Day 46 - November 19th

10am wake! Latest I’ve slept in to for a while! I find out that my toilet is blocked and then all the water overflows when I flush it. I leave it and try and pretend it wasn’t me! I check out and have lunch. I wait for a taxi outside the motel for a good 15 minutes and then a man comes up to me and tells me he will take me to the bus stop for the airport and that a taxi will cost at least Y50! I go back into the motel and ask reception. They tell me to take taxi from across the road. I cross over and if by magic, a cab appears straight away! As I jump in, another guy asks me if I was going to the station and if we could share a cab. We arrive at the station and the meter says Y14.90. Y50 my arse!!!

The train to Chengdu is a double-decker train. Not much happened on the train ride up, I slept a bit, read a bit and also spoke to Lisa on the phone, but gave up as the phone cut out every few km as there were many tunnels! The journey took me past things of China which I haven’t seen in a long while; palm trees and rice paddies, but then soon it got cold again as we travelled higher and higher. Saw the sun in the first time in ages!

I arrive in Chengdu after 5 hours and decide to go to the Dragon Town Hostel… it was on a street named 宽 which is my name in Chinese! The taxis in Chengdu all seem to have webcams in for some reason, which reminds me of the daytime TV game show in UK called Cash Cab! A London cab would drive around London and pick up people and then quiz them in the cab whilst they are on their journey and the contestants win money!!! Great show! I arrive at the hostel and put my washing in the machine. It finishes, but hasn’t spun dried at all! I also book a tour to the panda sanctuary for Y90. I know I could do it much cheaper on my own, but I didn’t like the idea of catching buses at 6 in the morning (pandas sleep most the day so have to go in the morning), and I got a free panda bear!

I decide to stay close by for dinner and eat at a posh looking restaurant next to the hostel. I order the burger for Y22, which turns out to be a bit of burger meat in a baguette! Not the best burger I’ve ever had! I then realize that I have been wearing the same pair of trousers for a week and half and that I must have left a pair of shorts in Shanghai at Eamonns.

I decide that I want to fly to Kunming to meet Jane my sister on Sunday, rather than take the 18 hour train! Only cost Y390! Meet Terry (another Londoner) and then later find out that in our room, there is another Brit and an Italian!

Miles walked: 303.427m

Day 45 - November 18th

Wake up late. Our boat arrived in Chongqing last night. I am late for breakfast and check out. Don’t get much time to say goodbye to the people I met on-board. I meet Vivian… Leo was right, she is pretty fit! I tell her I wanted to get a train out today for Chengdu but she tells me there are no seats today. So she books me into a Motel 168 (Eamonns favorite place to take the girls!) for Y100. I later find out there is a hostel in Chongqing, though she doesn’t really deal with this type of place. She is nice enough to take me into town after checking into my motel and buy the tickets and shows me a few shops. She then gets a call and leaves me and I walk around aimlessly for a few hours! I bump into the Brits that were onboard the ship earlier! They look very out of place! I direct them to Starbucks and they then look much happier!

I spend much of the day in internet cafes or in my room watching the Guinness World Records show in China! Highlight was the man who used his fist to crack open nuts… he cracked 50 in 30 seconds, he could have done more, but they ran out of nuts! I then realized that I could have got a bus to Chengdu! Stupid girl!

I chat to Lisa, my tour guide from the dam. She seems to open up to me and tell me all about her troubles at home and how she wants to leave, but its too scary for her! Why does this always happen to me?

Early night!

Miles walked: 299.569m