Anshun to ChongQing
After our breakfast at Mercure Anshun we DiDi a taxis to fetch us and our luggage to Anshun Xi Station (West) and the taxis fare was ¥7. Though the walking distance was only 700m we still hailed a cab as we did not want to drag our luggage along the 700m, besides the taxis fare was outrageously inexpensive.
The distance from Anshun to ChongQing was 448 km and the cost of the train ticket, first class seat per person was Train from ¥300. The train ride was 3 hours. We arrived at the train station about 50 minutes before departure, scanned our passport to enter the departure hall and had our luggage “checked” before entry.
Again we had bought our tickets 14 days ahead directly on China Rail (https://www.12306.cn/en/index.html) instead of on Trip.com as we were familiar with Mandarin and had no problem navigating China Rail Website. When using China Rail website the mobile app was definitely more “usable” than the website on the laptop.
The 3 hour train ride was lovely. Our first class seats had ample leg room. Midway through the ride the attendant came by and handed us a box of refreshment. The refreshment was free for first class seat!
Once we arrived at ChongQing West Station we exited smoothly and e-hailed a taxis to bring us to ChongQing famous harbour view where our stay for the night was sited. The ride for 23.5 km came up to ¥35!
Our Stay in ChongQing
We booked River Four Seasons Hotel (重庆两江四季酒店(洪崖洞店) just beside the famous Hongya Cave (洪崖洞). Our room “Smart Choice Hongya River-view Double Bed Room (Prime River-view + Floor-to-Ceiling Window + TV Projection)” costed ¥640 per night which included breakfast the next morning.
We were willing to pay more for a hotel near HongYaDong and also a room with the river view. We were slightly disappointed with the view because from our position we could not really see HongYaDong (洪崖洞). Our hotel was practically on top/over HongYaDong which meant we could not see HongYaDong (洪崖洞) frontage. It was silly of us not to consider that fact when we booked the hotel.
It seemed that there was no hotel that had had a frontal view of HongYaDong as HongYaDong was by the edge of the river and the hotels across the river that faced HongYaDong were very far away. So our hotel was still a nice hotel where the view was concerned.
Around Hongyadong
After we checked into our room and rested well we went exploring the vicinity of HongYa Dong.
We took a walk down the road from our hotel moving left (as along the river) and came to a area full of highrise. There were many shops, cafes and restaurants.
We stopped by a cafe for our coffee break. The cafe place was Maan Coffee which also served waffles with icecream. It had a “cute” theme promotion. The staff brought a stuffed toy bear when serving our coffee. The toy bear would keep us accompany for the duration we were in the cafe.
After the coffee we walked toward the river, moving toward the tourist boat jetty. The sun was going down and some of the shops were lighting up. HongDong Ya was very interesting, we walked in to one of the buildings from the road level and found that we had to take an elevator down many stories to its lowest level which opened up to another road. The entire place was packed with people, everybody was squeezing to get into a couple of elevators that were available!
HongYaDong also called HongYa Cave and Dong (洞) in chinese meant cave. But this place had NO cave at all! It was a 11-story stilt building complex built into the hillside along the southern bank of Jialing River. The complex consisted of retail spaces, food market, spice stores and hotels.
The complex was a fortress from the ancient Ba State (1046B.C – 256 B.C) through the end of the Qing dynasty. Stilt houses were built along the river bank and were populated until 1949. As the shipping industry declined the stilt houses were left in disrepair and were torn down by local government from 2005. New buildings in th style of traditional stilt houses were later built in the same place.
HongYaDong when lighted up
We found a place near the tourist boat jetty to have a our dinner. It was hotpot. All the tables by the side of the restaurant bordering the river were taken up so we had to make do with a table far away from the water view.
The hotpot soup was too spicy to our liking and they overpowered the taste of the meat and vegetable that went into the hotpot. After dinner we left the restaurant and walked onto the “lower road” of HongYaDong, there we were mesmerised by the beauty of the many lighted building. The sky had darkened and all the buildings were lighted up and the crowd was huge..HUGE.
We squeezed our way up the “Red” vehicular bridge which was on the left side of HongYaDong (if one was facing HongYaDong and back facing the river) and walked up to the pedestrian path of the Red Bridge. We walked about one quarter way on the bridge and “Whoa!” the sight of HongYaDong from the Red Bridge was “stunning”!!
QiKou village
We left our hotel River Four Seasons Hotel which was next to HongYaDong after breakfast the next day and we ehailed (DiDi) a cab to get to QiKou Ancient Village (磁器口古镇). The cab fee was ¥35. At about 10.25am we arrived at the “West Entrance” of the ancient village. We did not enter the the village but did a quick detour of about 300m to “ChongQing 1984 Grand Theater” to purchase our tickets for a performance at 2pm. At 11am we were back to QiKou Ancient Village and had three full hours to explore before going for our performance,
Entry into the ancient village was free. This ancient village was very different from our expectations. We imagined an old village full of “grayish” building and muddy streets but this ancient village had a “modern air”. The building were traditional building but they were neat, clean and bright!
The stone streets were well paved and clean. Chinese lanterns were strung over the streets across the building giving the ambience a “quaintness”. The whole village was a “shopping paradise”, food, drinks were sold everywhere. There were many restaurants, cafe, street food stores etc.
This ancient village was founded during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) and rose to prominence in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). It was a strategic military post and a comercial port as it was nestled along the Yellow River in Shanxi Province. This ancient town had a 2000 history and was one of China’s best preserved ancient river port towns. The town’s cobblestone streets, traditional courtyard houses, and temples reflected its prosperous past as a center for grain, salt, and silk trade.
In the present day, the street stores of this ancient village were selling all kinds of beverages, it was dotted with tea houses and coffee houses.They provided many cosy places for visitors to rest and relax. We found a cafe near the west entrance to settle down for our coffee break, we had about 45 minutes before we proceeded to ChongQing 1984 Theatre for an afternoon “performance’.
chongQing1948 Performance
“ChongQing1948” was the name of a theater performance and the theatre was aptly named “ChongQing1948 Grand Theatre”. It was just a 300 metre walk from QiKou Ancient Village.
There were three performance a day, 2pm was the first one, 4pm the second performance and 5.30pm the third one. We picked this performance when searching on the internet on what we should do in ChongQing. We did not have much time in our two days in ChongQing and could not go too far away, so Qikou and “ChongQing 1948 performance” were just near and “short” enough.
We bought two tickets for ¥498. We chose the seats on the revolving sections (section A and B) which were more costly that those in Sections C and D which did not revolved. We often chose the “better” seat section as we found from previous experience that the “enjoyment returns” were very much increase with good seating.
The tickets were also available on Trip.com but we bought ours onsite as we wanted to be more flexible with our timing.
The storyline of this performance was about the heroic struggle and liberation of ChongQing at the end of China Civil War. We were not very enthusiatic about a “revolution theme” but this was the only performance in town so we had no other option.
We went into the theatre about 15 minutes before the show started. Looking at the stage we were already very amazed with the “props”.
The performance was super impressive. We were mesmerised by the high technical effect of the revolving stage and the revolving seats! The stages had three levels and each level was rotating independently, one clockwise the other anti clockwise and our seats moving clockwise or anticlockwise at the rim of the theater.
Due to the revolving stages and seats the audience were moving from scene to scene. One moment we were viewing a “jetty/dock” and the next moment we were viewing a prison scene then we were in an ocean.
The 75 minutes performance was just too fantastic to describe. After the show ended we definitely felt that the high cost of the tickets was spent well worth! We were glad that we bought the tickets for the seats in the revolving sections (section A and B) and not the seats in the non-revolving sections (section C and D).
Stay around HongDongYa ChongQing
