We liked Chongqing (once called Chunking, pronounced Chong-Ching). It was much cleaner than our guidebook led us to believe. Even the outskirts weren't that gritty. On the way in we passed tall glass office buildings and swank hotels. It all seemed very new and reminded Eric of Silicon Valley.

The downtown had a nice wide pedestrian mall (called Times Square) surrounding a simple, five-story tower. Litter, dust, loose paving bricks and thousands of carts selling crap did NOT plague the ped mall. Instead it had neat looking shops and malls. It also had a great restaurant with awesome potstickers.

The one bummer was trying to ship our bikes. After Chongqing, we planned to take a boat on the Yangtse, and then trains to Xi'an and back to Chengdu. Instead of lugging the bikes the whole way, we wanted to ship them back to Chengdu.

So we rode to the train station. What a mob scene. Many buildings, many lines, almost no signs in English. Finally I spotted a sign with a question mark (information). Under the sign was a booth. The woman didn't speak English. She kept laughing and waving me off. I tried to mime. Same response. Finally I hoisted my bike, half loaded, over my shoulder so she could see it. The bike blocked the whole booth, so none of the rest of the crowd could get by. This perked up the clerk's attention. She watched as I drew a picture of a train and bikes on a little map showing Chongqing and Chengdu. She laughed at my art but she got it. She pointed behind us. It wasn't specific pointing, but at least she was giving us directions, not just waving.

We started walking that way and passed several places that were handling luggage. At each one we tried to ask, "bikes to Chengdu?" but it seemed hopeless. One lady nodded and even quoted us a price, which actually seemed low.

Just then our saviors appeared: three guys, Mingsheng, Shijian and Jiahong, on vacation from their studies at a foreign language institute in Guangzhou, China. They all spoke excellent English. They told us the place we were in was just a luggage storage place, and could not send the bikes to Chengdu. They said the lady we talked to was trying to cheat us--she had apparently quoted us a very high price for luggage storage.

Mingsheng, Shijian and Jiahong walked us around the other side of the station to the actual shipping office. They translated everything and even filled out parts of the forms for us (the station insisted that we fill out some of the information in Chinese characters). The guys at a station put all our bags, plus all our loose stuff (helmets, etc.) in a giant burlap bag and even sewed it closed! It cost 151 yuan to ship both bikes, or about US$20. We didn't even have to box the bikes. Not a bad deal! Unfortunately, there were hidden costs. When we picked up the bikes later we discovered that my bell was broken, and Eric's was gone. Stolen.

We offered to take our saviors out for a lunch, but they said, "Now we must go with her." They pointed to a woman who was carrying her baby in a bamboo backpack. She was their next good deed. We call them the Boy Scouts.

The boat ride was amazing. We got on board at 10 p.m. on a Monday and got off early afternoon on a Wednesday. We saw the gorges in evening light and dawn light. They were massive, sheer walls, and none of our photographs capture it. Our room, which was 'first class' was pretty awful. Thin, tattered foam mattresses covered by questionably clean sheets, and a massive cockroach in 40 pieces smashed on the mat floor between the beds. Eric said at least it wasn't in one piece. The second class rooms were pretty squalid, too. I think the main difference is the first class rooms were closes to a second-floor balcony, which had room for about 10 people max to stand and gawk at the scenery. We spent hours out there with only one or two other tourists. On the rest of the boat people were crammed into awful spaces, sleeping near the garbage.

If you're going, it's pretty cheap. It cost 1856 yuan (US $223) for two first class tickets.

We landed near Yichang in early afternoon. Because of the huge dam project, boats don't go all the way to Yichang anymore. Instead, we got off in a huge parking lot, where hundreds of people were trying to get on buses. Somebody wearing a uniform hustled me and Eric to the front of a line so we got on a bus right away. I felt a little guilty but in China, I was usually the one trampled over, so I just enjoyed that moment of privilege. The bus took about 30 minutes to Yichang, and we managed to get a train that day to Xi'an.

Train notes for other travelers: Avoid hard sleeper! Unless you like sleeping in bunks with dozens of other people, half of whom spend all the night hawking and spitting on the floor. Eric and I bought first class tickets, which put us in a nice carpeted room with only four bunks. No spitting allowed.

We only went to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors. That was a great exhibit, and totally worth the trip. The city itself wasn't so hot. It did have a very cool city wall, which we spent an hour walking on. You go up a long set of stairs, and then you can walk part way around the city perimeter on the wall. It's as wide as an alley. Best of all, there's no litter and no one up there trying to sell you anything! If you want, you can bring your bike, and ride on it. We would have done that if we hadn't shipped our bikes back earlier.

Besides the warriors and the wall, the city was a disappointment. The hotels were really expensive. We left after two days, on a train to Chengdu.

That train ride was one of the hilights of our China trip. We ended up sharing our sleeper with a really nice guy who is also a factory automation engineer--just like Eric. He even had some brochures in his bag about certain software tools. He spoke great English. He and Eric talked shop.

He had lived through the Cultural Revolution. All through China, I kept looking at older people, wishing I could speak Chinese so I could hear their experiences. Our friend said he was in his early 20s when the Revolution started. He had a job in a factory, so he wasn't sent to the countryside to be re-educated, like his sister was. In the factory, all the workers were encouraged to write out long posters about their views of the Revolution. They hung the posters up in the factory and debated with each other over what they had written. Eventually, they figured out that some people got in trouble over what they wrote. So they had to be more careful. Our friend never got in trouble.

The only bad thing about the train was we both caught bronchitis. A few days after we arrived in Chengdu we were both really sick--chills, sweats, high fevers. We took our temperatures, and whoever had the lower temperature had to play nurse, and run errands. Tracking our temperatures was like tracking a horse race. One hour Eric would have 103.5F, and I'd be 101. A few hours later it would be reversed.

We really wanted to leave for Lhasa, but we didn't want to deal with acclimatizing to high altitude and fevers. So we waited and waited. Eventually, we started getting better and booked our flight.

Travelers: yes you can fly from Chengdu to Lhasa. There are about half a dozen travel agencies in the lobby of the Traffic Hotel in Chengdu, and they all charge the same price: 1950 yuan (about US $235) for a 'tour' that includes a one way air ticket, and two nights free lodging in a dumpy hotel in Lhasa. Cash only. The cost of the flight alone is way less, but foreigners must book a 'tour.' We later met two English guys, who unwittingly bought cheap Chengdu-Lhasa tix overseas. When they showed up for their flight, the airport personnel sent them back to the Traffic to buy a 'tour.'

Bike notes: yes you can fly with a bike! The guy who sold us our tickets said it would be no problem and it wasn't. We didn't have to box ours and we didn't have to pay for extra luggage. But the rules change with the wind. Our friends, Team Swiss, flew a week after us. They went to a different travel agent, who refused to let them bring bikes. He said bringing bikes would be a sure sign that the Swiss weren't really part of the fake 'tour.' Another agent let them bring the bikes, but at the airport, the agent told all the airline workers to charge them for extra luggage. Team Swiss had boxed their bikes on our suggestion (our bikes got some rough treatment, though nothing was actually broken), and the size of the boxes had spooked the travel agent. In the end, Team Swiss didn't have to pay extra for the bikes, but it was a big fight.

Next: Tibet

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