I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but China is a place of huge contrasts - I kind of liken it to their yin/yang theory. They are ridiculously proud of their land and their culture, but its so polluted its not funny. I guess the difference is that they do try to make an effort to clean it up, but the population is too much for it really. (And while strange at first, I am glad that the kids DO run around with pants that do not have the seams up the back, rather than a population of this size using disposable nappies!) Its also very strange looking at the houses and new towns - the buildings are quite clean and modern, with no dicernable character, but its like the people have not quite caught up just yet - they still have their hay stacks in the front yard, next to the wood pile, and corn crops in any available land and farm them with hoe and basket.
I'm currently in ChongQing, with a population on 32.5 million people. It's a huge, spread out city, which is kind of odd, as they have not been all that big so far - they have all this land, but the cities are still crowded on top of each other with huge apartment buildings as far as the eye can see, which isn't all that far because there are apartment buildings in the way! Subsequently there are really thick clouds of haze covering most places in China. Its quite disappointing to see, or not see, as the case may be.
ChongQing is on the Yangtze river, upstream from the dam wall. We've just got off our 2 night, but only one and a half - quarter actually - day cruise of the Yangtze river. We drove past the 2km long Yangtze dam wall on the way to the wharf. It is a massive undertaking. Actually we were still quite far from it, so I don't think I even comprehended its scale properly. It has a 10 level boat lock. I can't even imagine the engineering skill required to do that. As I said, the wall is 2kms long and the reinforcement of the banks goes for miles back upstream to prepare for when its full; most likely late next year (prior to the Beijing Olympics - was originally scheduled for completion 2009). The level of the water is at about 165m at the moment, and will get to a high water line of 175m, but I have no idea how they expect to maintain that, and control the seemingly uncontrolable Yangtze.
This is the biggest engineering project undertaken in the world, and the benefits have been predicted as supplying 10% of the national electricity requirements, increase tourism to the area and ease flooding down river. However the negative ramifications can not even be predicted because nothing like this has been done before. People against the project argue that there will be loss of wildlife (possible endangered species), loss of approx. 8000 so far unexcavated archaelogical sites, and it may case rock falls or earthquaked due to the sudden and dramatic change in the landscape. If the wall breaks the ramifications will be catastrophic for the cities miled down river. Its a big risk they are taking, and before this construction has even been proven they are planning to dam Tiger Leaping Gorge - teams have already been looking at possible sites, so I expect that the government will go ahead regardless of opposition.
There are about 5 relatively large cities that have been relocated under the project, and most have now been covered with water. The new cities are strangely sterile, and appear to be empty of people at the moment. Actually most of the cities have no particular feel to them, except for the old towns.
Our hotel was rubbish. We stayed one night, but that was enough to know that it was the kind of establishment that offered rooms by the hour. There were items of assistance in the rooms, just in case it was a spur of the moment decision. Breakfast (typically Chinese I'm led to believe) was a bread dumpling with rice porridge, Chinese pickles, a boiled egg, a greyish coloured ball covered in sesame and spicy beans. Of that I ate the dumpling and boiled egg. We even had a large black rat under the table for company. Not surprising when you stuck to the floors on the way in and out, and the custom when eating in a Chinese restaurant is that any scraps; egg shell, fish bones etc, are just discarded on the floor, but the 4 staff employed (but do nothing because under communism as long as you have a job that's enough to maintain 0% unemployment figures) did nothing at all. One even looked at me blankly when I enquired as to whether tea was available with breakfast. Oddly enough there was no tea - very strange for a country when the men carry a flask of green tea with them everywhere, and hot water outlets are nearly everywhere to make sure you never run short of tea. I was presented with a large bowl of some soy drink instead, but given the presence of the rat I courteously declined.
With some trepidation I went to the ChongQing zoo to see some Giant Pandas. And yes, while the pandas were extremely cute and lovable and very entertaining while only eating bamboo, I was fairly heartbroken at the rest of the zoo. One tiger was in an OK enclosure with grass and a few trees but looked like he had a lame back leg and was quite skinny - the other one was in a straight concrete and metal cage about 2.5x2.5m next to a male and feemal lion in the same area. Man they just looked reduced to old decrepid cats, not like the 'kings of the jungles' they should be. There were also Himalayan bears, Malaysian Sun Bears, a leopard, cheetah, jaguar and wolf in cages the same size or smaller. As you can probably imagine I just about choked up - you could barely even see the animals for wire and bars. But that's enough of that.
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