Travel Sickness

I woke up this morning with a headache, and a scratchy throat. I think the recycled air on the boat, mixing with the cigarette smoke of a few dozen German tourists and the smog pouring out of riverside factories, was the source of my discomfort.The M.S. Fortune stopped in the morning and we disembarked, immediately discovering a gigantic staircase. I hired a porter to help with my bag, before seeing that she was an old woman. She tried picking up my bag and carrying it several steps before I released her of her duty and hauled it myself.We crammed into a van which carried us to Chongqing across a heaving, crumbly road for four hours. I began feeling quite sick during the ride as we bounced up and down past factories, through farms and old villages.The entrance to the Chongqing train station was underground, where a food court type-place served as a waiting area. The fumes from cars dropping off choked the sub-street level area. We had several hours before departing, so decided to bunker down in McDonalds of all places. I felt obligated to eat there as an American. The Big Macs had cucumbers.A student sat at my table and tried to speak English, admirably. ("Where you from? How long in China?" was how these conversations usually went) People were yelling on cellphones. A man was skipping around shooting pictures, as if this ordinary (to me) McDonalds was a place of exceptional beauty. I became uncomfortable and went for the bathroom, and upon seeing it, left feeling even worse. I ended up hurling in my tote-bag, ruining my guidebook and a hat.We finally did board the train, after several false alarms, and a lot of standing up in dense, sweating crowds. At one point the sound of a very large glass wall shattering erupted somewhere in the station. The train ride to Chengdu lasted several hours, a few of which I spent standing near the "bathroom" with a paper bag in my hand, just in case.