Hello Chongqing, Hello World

Two days ago my evening entertainment was three marmots and a thermos. Tonight I stand at a river railing while a mountain range of buildings performs light at me: the stilt house complex at Hongyadong glowing gold like a lacquered beehive, a cable bridge overhead, a dragon-shaped boat sliding by in full costume, and the skyline spelling greetings in LED, hello Chongqing, hello world, in case anyone doubted the register.

Chongqing is what happens when a city is built on cliffs by people who refuse to acknowledge cliffs. Streets stack; the metro dives through an apartment block; you exit a building's twelfth floor onto a road. After three weeks of horizontal Eurasia the verticality reads as science fiction with laundry hanging in it.

But I am not here for the light show. Two hours up the Wujiang from this glow sits a mountain that was hollowed for a purpose this city was never told about at the time. The contrast is the itinerary now: brightest city, darkest hall. A few days of approach remain and I intend to savor the dimming.