Chongqing - Day 1
We've got a day tour booked today. We smash down some pretty ordinary hotel breakfast food before being picked up at 8am. Our guide is Mia and we also have a driver. Just us on the tour, which is great. A captive audience for Jeff to ask all his questions.
Mia is from Chongqing and lives in the city. We drove past her Mum's place, about 30 mins from the city - she's there pretty often for dinner. We even get to sample some of Mum's cooking later; some tasty roast beef.
We learn that Chongqing has been on the international tourist map for about 3 years now, and we've definitely noticed more westerners than in other cities. It's also becoming an attractive destination for domestic migration. Plenty of jobs and much cheaper real estate. A decent 3 bedroom apartment in the city goes for about $300,000 AUD. "What would that get you in Beijing?" - "A toilet".
Mia has a young daughter in kindergarten. But also a 10 year old sister - the massive age gap driven by the one child policy. Jeff asks if she's noticed the gender imbalance that stemmed from the policy. Mia was unaware and refused to believe there was an imbalance! We later check our facts and sources - all good, Chinese bureau of statistics confirms it got as bad as 120 boys for every 100 girls at one point.
We make our way to our first destination, Area 816 which was a top secret underground nuclear weapons facility built into the mountains during the cold war. It got to about 85% completion.
We talk about how great it is that it's open for tourism and for sharing the history. Better than hiding it. Mia agrees. Jeff asks an open ended question regarding other aspects of Chinese history that aren't so well taught. "History is written by the winners"... Not exactly where Jeff was going with that, but an interesting response, none the less.
Mia says she has mixed feelings about school kids being shown places like Area 816 since there is a lot of romanticism applied to the history and national pride is the underlying theme. Mia sees it through the eyes of a mother now and isn't so sure it should be country first at any cost - noting that tens of thousands of workers on this project effectively disappeared themselves to ensure it remained top secret.
We learn that Chongqing is bad for agriculture except for mushrooms and ingredients for certain traditional medicines. When we see lots of green planted stuff as we drive along it's Chinese cabbage. Just for the farmers themselves to eat.
This helps explain why chilli (especially Sichuan) is so popular in provinces which were historically poor. Chilli can make a whole bowl of bland rice less bland.
We tour the nuclear site and it feels like we're in a movie or a video game or actually in Chernobyl. An incredible engineering feat they nearly achieved here, building a functioning nuclear facility into/under a mountain. The tunnels are massive and run for many kilometres. We descend further and further until we reach the reactor cavity - where the uranium would have been enriched into plutonium ready for the bombs. They never got to the point of bringing the uranium in though, so no radioactivity here.
The walls have lots of propaganda slogans written on them - it's hard to know if they are original or added later.
All in all it was a surreal experience and getting to walk through this complex gave us a tangible feel for the history of 'the third front' of the Cold War from the viewpoint of the Chinese.
We grab some OK lunch and a decent coffee from the shops at the attraction site. Luckily we had Mum's roast beef to add some protein.
The other attraction for the day tour is the Wuling Mountain Great Rift Valley. As the name suggests, it's a geological attraction in the mountains with plenty of hiking options to take in many cool views. It's cold and drizzly today and the clouds are hanging low on the mountain, so we opt for the shorter of the 2 hiking options.
We get dropped off at the tourist centre and it's pretty empty. Which is good because every other attraction in China is rammed. Jeff asks why it's only women working the jobs in these tourist centre places. Mia laughs and says "Because the pay is low. A man can't work these jobs and expect to get a wife".
A short shuttle bus later and you guessed it, another bloody cable car. This time won't be so bad though: it's so cloudy you can't really see far (down) and it is basically hugging the mountain as it descends. Some cool views though and a new bird spotted!
We start the hike and instantly we are ooohing and aaahing. We gave it up too early though because it kept getting better. Walking along a very narrow gorge, the walkway is built into the side of it, so we are a fair way above the ground. The photos don't do it justice at all.
The end of the hike is through about a 500m tunnel where they must have been like 'yea stuff it, let's just drill through to the gorge from here'.
Another cable car back up and we are soon cruising and snoozing our way back to the city.
We head straight back out for dinner, trying to find a nearby place that does local Chongqing dishes. We have a couple more to tick off. We fail and just get some fairly simple dishes. The twice cooked pork and rice dish was good. The 'chicken' and ham sausage was less good.
A couple of Oreo McFlurry knock-offs and a mochi waffle for the walk home and we are done. Time to head back to the apartment and admire the light show that is this city.
