So, we had one last long weekend before the final run up to the end of term so Martin and I took the high speed train from Chengdu to Chonquing, a city of around 25 million people about 400 km south of Chengdu. Top tip: Labour Day Weekend is a crazy time to travel in China and second only to Chinese New Year in terms of busyness and number of people moving around the country - needless to say we made it with minutes to spare.
The train is very impressive and travels around 300 KPH which you don't really notice until you go past a station and see people blur before you!
Chongqing is massive but getting round was straight forward with the use of local cabs but now my new best app ever - Uber - gotta love that app!
It is so easy, even in China with very little Mandarin - just keep repeating, when the driver rings you - "Wo She Yingerlan Ren - Ting Ba Dong" which I think is "I am an English Man. I don't understand you!" Eventually he says OK OK and arrives - we then mime for a few seconds and we're off at cut price! If you'd like to get it and open an account - please use the promo code greg1ub and you'll get 10 RMB off your first 3 trips!
Did I mention it was busy! I've never seen so many people in one place and I've been to the Olympics!
Could have been worse - we could have gone to the aqua park which is quite difficult to really do many lengths!
This is Martin O'Donnell my weekend adventure buddy - you can tell how interesting I was as a companion form this pic! Not fair really he was very good - for him!
This was a weekend of firsts for me - not only Uber but I got to select ladies for Martin on his Tinder app! It was like a sweet shop of pretty Chinese women and I realised very quickly that it is so easy to literally swipe someone away because they are wearing a cap - which by the way is not an item for a woman ever and only for men in special circumstances - whippet racing or SAS interview!
That's all for now comrades - back to the chalk face!