Phil's China Viking Yangtze River Cruise - Blog 6 (rivercruising .co.uk)

Up early for breakfast, suitcase packed and time to reflect (over a bacon toastie), how I managed to end up as a dancer in the crew show. Much to the amusement of the passengers I think I managed to carry off my performance as a Chinese Morris Dancer..!!

I'm hoping my equity card is in the post!

Its time to check out and say our goodbyes to the excellent Viking River Cruise crew. You have to trust me, I am not joking when I tell you this is the most attentive yet unobtrusive service I have ever experienced on a ship. The standard tips are $7 - $10 per person per day, which on our cruise equates to $40. I did give small personal tip our lovely waitress Tina and Thomson our attentive and willing bar waiter.

We leave the ship at 9am for short drive through Chongqing (Chung Ching) the largest city in China, with a population of 32 million people. That is more than Shanghai and Beijing put together..!!

It is growing all the time and rumour has it they update the city map every 3 months

They will never change the name of the city Chongqing, which means double happy because they never have earthquakes here and rarely a flood.

Chongqing is also called the mountain city because it is built on different levels. To join the areas of the city together there are 35 bridges in less than 1 km. In the whole city there is a total of 4000 bridges.

The average level of this city is 200 metres and because of this it will not be affected in the final stages of the dam and rising water.

The city has recently constructed a convention and conference centre - it was completed in 10 months...unbelievable!! I live in Blackpool and its taken over 2 years to build Debenhams...

This is one amazing city and is the clearest example of China's huge growth.

The city also has the largest tea plantation in China and is nearly always foggy due to its location in the mountains in the west of China. During the war from 1937 to 1945 the people painted the houses black to hide in the fog from the Japanese bombers.

We finish the amazing drive through the city of Chongqing with our arrival at the cities zoo to see the Panda's.

There are only 1500 Panda's left in the wild and approx 135 in captivity. They spend about 18 hours a day eating bamboo shoots. We were very lucky to catch one of the Panda's eating Bamboo. See the pictures below - they were so cute!

I have saved one picture for my shout out today. Its to a good friend who has just had a serious heart attack. Get well soon Tom Beck from Arnold School, Blackpool. Take it easy my friend just like this Panda..!!

After the Zoo we stopped off at the Days Inn Hotel for a Chinese Banquet. It was ok but the courses were a little unstructured. For example rice arrived towards the end of the meal which seemed a little strange.

Now we are off to Chongqing airport for a 1 hour flight to Xian.

Again its another Viking River Cruise seemless transfer. Everything is taken care of by Viking to such a point that I could not tell you what day of the week it is. I cannot emphasise enough, how effortless everything is.

For example: 13.40 we arrived at the airport. Our seats had already been booked. We were handed our boarding cards and walked straight through to board the flight. We arrived in Xian 1 hour later. Walked straight onto our Bonnie Bus for a 1 hour transfer to the Shangri La hotel. Now how good is that?

We have an hour to chill out before going for a meal and a local show.

Then tomorrow its off to see the Terracotta Warriors...can't wait, another adventure awaits.