Eric's Beijing Diary

I am in Chongqing now. Actually not in the city proper, but in a county town about four hours away, but under the administration of Chongqing. As you may know, Chongqing, which used to be a city in Sichuan Province, was made an independent city/province in 1997.

I had originally thought of taking a river boat to Chongqing from Hunan Province, but I found out that there is a bus from Coffee's home town that makes a six hour run directly to Chongqing. I still had to get to the county town, but Tom arranged a car. The way it works is that you meet the driver of the car, and then as soon as he has sold rides to a full car he will leave. So I got to Chongqing about six o'clock last night, managed to hook up with the driver at about 7pm, and then waited around until we picked up the last customer at the airport last night at 10:30. The other riders who had come before I did were starting to complain a little, but not too much, actually, because they knew that every empty seat was a cost to him. Frustrating, but I was resigned to it, because even with the three hour wait, it was a whole lot less trouble than going to the youth hostel for the night and then trying to catch a regular bus out here this morning. Tom met me at the drop off point at about 2 am, and took me to Flora's place. Flora is a young lady from the same church who has a home in the county town. Tom is actually from an outlying village.

Slept a little late this morning, but still managed to get up and get going before nine. Tom wanted to show me the local Three Self Church. The senior pastor's daughter, who is also on the staff was there, and we talked with her for awhile. Then we went to meet with some of the ladies from the church.