If you know me then you know of my heritage and can assume some things about what my diet must have included ever since I was a little 'mocoso'. Point is, I've been an eater and lover of spicy foods forever. I'm not fanatical like the old man, but I love a good curry, hot sauce or whatever dish has a little kick to it. Despite all manner of hot and spicy foods that I have consumed all over the world, what happened yesterday was a first.
The 'hotpot' experience involves cooking any number of things using chopsticks in a huge kettle-like thing of a chili-saturated sauce right at your table. Imagine a sadistic version of fondue and you got the idea. You order all the stuff raw and it appears moments later on a huge tray. You wait for the chili to start to boil and then drop your food into the murky, chili-infested waters. Mercifully, you are also given a bowl of toasted sesame oil and raw garlic which you add to the sesame oil as much as you'd like. Prior to eating your food, you dip it in the oil to take some of the edge off. So, after all this build up, you know that it was painfully hot. However, it was also very tasty. It wasn't just hot for hot's sake; there was a lot of great flavor there. There are two main chilis at work here and one of them is not much bigger than a peppercorn. Small though it might be, the punch in that little peppper caused my lips to tingle in a freakish way. That's never happened. It was as if someone had attached electrodes to my lips and thrown a switch. I was later informed that dentists here use that particular chili as a novacaine substitute! And of course, the more I ate, the more it went on. And it goes without saying, that the sweating that went on was legendary. In my haste to mop my brow, I (more than once) wiped off my forehead and cheeks with napkins that had been used to wipe off the chili sauce, so within minutes, pretty much my whole face was a tingly mess. I was encouraged not to drink the beer for relief because that would only cause the next bite to appear to be hotter than it actually was. It was quite the experience. I am so relieved that I was able to eat quite a bit and with the exception of some heartburn, I didn't suffer the kind of intestinal distress that I thought would surely be my destiny.
The over 6 1/2 hour ride here from Chengdu was nowhere near the pleasant experience that my first bus ride in this country was. The driver...where to begin?!? Nice enough of a guy, but not what I would think of as being a pro. Were it only for smoking half a pack of cigarettes or talking with his buddy in the first row for half the ride, then he might've been OK. But he also seemed to pay too much attention to the TV monitor just above his head and spend too much time on his cell phone. And the dozen or so times he hocked up a nice phlegm biscuit didn't do a whole lot to endear me to him either. Oh and he drove the bus through a curvy, hilly region with a little too much gusto for my taste. It was a memorable ride on a trip where there have already been a few too many. Crap, I have three more to go I think.
This city is staggeringly huge and not all that picturesque in a nice way, to be honest. My hostel is sandwiched and dwarfed by huge tenement apartment buildings which are covered in city-filth and look like they were all the rage right about the time Nixon was getting his walking papers. It's really something to see yet another huge city in this country. And huge in China is not like huge in USA. This city would probably only be topped by NY, as far as people go. And I just left Chengdu which could claim the same thing. On it goes...I heard the other day that the population is now 1.3 billion here. Just imagine what it would be if the government here was a little more relaxed when it comes to such things.
Tomorrow I head off on a three-night, four day cruise of the Yangste River. I know, I know, I claim to not do cruises. Well, this is on a river, so that's the first thing to understand. Also, to come to this part of the country and not do this cruise is not really an option. It's supposed to be staggeringly beautiful. However, I was informed tonight that due to the rising levels of the river, I will not be able to board here in Chongqing. I will have to (oh, the agony!) hop on a bus for three hours to board down river somewhere else. Lovely.
I doubt seriously I'll be able to write anything until after the trip, so until then, eat something spicy and think of me. Especially if you have to get up in the middle of the night to deal with some of the consequences!
Bon Appetit!
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