Another overcast start to the day and the first challenge was to scale the 120 steps from the dock to the waiting buses and this time it was with our ‘carry-on luggage’ since this morning we were disembarking Viking Emerald after 5 very enjoyable days and later in the day would be taking aninternal flight to Xian.
Chongqing is perched on steep hills at the confluence of the Yangtze with another of its major tributaries the Jailing River. Chongqing was the capital of China during World War II when the American Volunteer Air Group, The “flying Tigers” was based here. Today it is the capital of a vast Municipality in central China with a population of 32m although only 6 – 7m live in the urban city, the rest – 25m - are farmers and today its a major industrial centre.
Chongqing has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate – which explains the tropical storm we had in Fengdu just down the river- and for most of the year experiences very humid conditions.Known as one of the "Three Furnaces" of the Yangtze River, along with Wuhan and Nanjing, its summers are long and among the hottest and most humid in China, with highs of 33 to 34 °C (91 to 93 °F) in July and August in the urban area. Winters are short and somewhat mild, but damp and overcast. The city's location in the Sichuan Basin causes it to have one of the lowest sunshine totals annually in China so with over 100 days of fog per year, Chongqing is also known as the "Fog City", and in recent years, the strong industrial development has degraded the air quality further.
Chongqing is China's third largest centre for motor vehicle production and the largest for motorcycles. In 2007, it had an annual output capacity of 1 million automobiles and 8.6 million motorcycles. The municipality is also one of the nine largest iron and steel centres in China and one of the three major aluminium producers. Rice and fruits (especially oranges) are the area's main produce. Natural resources are also abundant with large deposits of coal, natural gas, and more than 40 kinds of minerals such as strontium and manganese. More recently the area has become a hub for the electronics and information technology sectors.
The picture is of the new heavy monorail – just outside the entrance to the Zoo - that connects the airport and the southern part of downtown just one element of the vast investment in public transport and infrastructure to support the future growth of this industrial metropolis.
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