1984 Trip on Yangzi - Chongqing to Shanghai

3. Yangzi River Passenger Boats in Chongqing

In 1985 our Chinese Boss Yang sent Bernice and I on a vacation. He gave us 4,000 Yuan and a couple of months to see China. We were working in Chengdu, Sichuan for the Chinese National Academy of Sciences teaching English to Chinese scientists. We took the train to Chongqing with one of the Chinese teachers who arranged for us to get on a boat there going to Wuhan where someone from the Academy of Sciences unit there would meet us and arrange for the next leg of our trip. We were off on a great adventure mostly by ourselves. The young lady got us a pair of tickets first class on the boat and then we were on our own. We didn't know much Chinese then and no one on the boat spoke any English. This was not a boat for foreign tourists but for Chinese. Most were on business or taking goods down the river for sale. Our first class cabin had two single bunks, one over the other, and the common first-class bath was down the hall. The cost for our two tickets was $18 US, not including meals. When we got aboard we discovered Bernice was assigned one room with someone else and I was assigned another room with another person. By sign language they said to wait until we were under way and then they arranged for us to be in the same room. It was summer and the weather was very hot, somewhere above 110F. Chongqing is known as one of the "Three Furnaces" of China.