It was past midnight when our bus arrived back at Chongqing. We had no intention of booking any accommodation, no appointment in the city except to leave it just after sunrise, on a boat that would take us along the throat of China, the great Yangtse River. A traveller without intentions may experience the quintessence of the sport, that motor at the root of human nature that has no expression except in the primal directive: To Go. It is the forgotten urge that forced a species to leave the savannahs and become nations, the embarrassment of these civilisations that attempt to tame the compulsive wandering of humankind, it is the only answer to which those who purchase their first plane ticket can turn when questioning the self as to wherefore proceedeth I?

Standing outside the long distance bus station at night, right across from the train station we'd arrived at just a few days beforehand, we were thankful to have the chance to explore the city again. Our first impressions of Chongqing had been most favourable, an unusual maze of streets leading down to the rivers which course up the sides of the peninsula to their coming together at its tip. Unfortunately, our having been cheated mercilessly when buying ferry tickets had soured the occasion; with renewed enthusiasm and the unique opportunity to be able to see an unfamiliar city at night, we hoped to make a better acquaintance with this city. We made the decision to taxi down to the docks, store our bags, and then set out on foot. We waved away the taxi with the trio of young xiaojies calling out at us, and got into an empty cab.

Metropolitan Chongqing is an old city on a small mountainous peninsula. Actually, the city in its entirety is enormous, and the Chongqing administrative zone is the size of a small province. But its core at the convergence of rivers is a nest of homes, alleys, staircases, old roads and huts of black stone. Chongqing is China's labyrinth where monsters may dwell, the city at night is all shadows and noise, the steam from old stoves on the backs of carts, dim lanterns and footsteps that seem to pass close by and turn away in fright. Set atop this old mazeway is a startlingly modern city of glass and lights. We were told by the taxi driver who took us close to the wharf that the city had modelled itself after Hong Kong, and that in just five years skyscrapers had mushroomed from the rock, that money had started to pass through the city like rats, that the wealthy had begun to navigate the streets in sleek black cars, searching out opportunities to nudge cash from stone.

Just a short way from the dock, we left our bags in an expensive luggage room in a cheap hotel, and walked outside into the Chongqing night. The air was warm and organic, the wet asphalt sparkled under the amber streetlamps, and we set out along a road that would lead us up past the temple we'd visited just days before and back into the central city area. The way seemed straightforward, the small map we were checking by the glow of the streetlights we passed beneath was a tad oversimplified, but appeared to verify our direction. We decided to first head for a cafe mentioned in the guidebook, a 24 hour dive close to the Liberation Monument where coffee and grubby jazz might keep us awake for a few hours, before we could escape to one of the central parks to watch the sun rise over the Yangtse. Clogged with old boats, we imagined the splendid tangerine cloud over the clay-coloured water, red rays on the sails of junks.

But the road leaned tighter as we moved closer to the bank than we thought we should be heading, and we quickly realised that we'd taken a wrong turn. The rock was black and empty of men, blocks of terraces walled over us on either side and a slow wind tossed at the bricks. After so frequently losing our way in Chengdu, we weren't so keen on spending the night lost in Chongqing, and at first we were reluctant to take one of the many narrow sidestreets that pulled higher up the peninsula's neck. But they did seem to be curving up in the direction that reason dictated we should be going to get to the square.

That the roads were devoid of people had been an illusion: as we pressed onwards, we came to realise that the city had never gone to bed. The poor were out sifting through junk, more industrious folk were preparing carts of food to begin selling breakfast in a few hour's time. One family were steaming baskets of buns stacked in front of their home, a middle-aged woman grinned at the pair of passing foreigners. Another alleyway was flushed in pink neon light from pretended hairdresser stores, girls were immersed in mahjong and poker, others sleeping on couches behind the doors; one enterprising psiren leaned out of the entrance to coo a couple of hellos before settling back over the mahjong table.

The path curled and crawled as we were forced into turn after turn. Chongqing is unforgiving to those who have lost their way, ever contradicting even the most steady senses of direction. On occasion we dipped low into havens of narrow alleyways, the houses alongside which were nestled together so tightly they looked as if they had been carved directly into the rock. After some time we managed to get a vantage over the water.

We were on a crest that seemed to overlook the river at the South of the city. Beneath us to our left, the land appeared to fall away into a slope of homes stacked over each other down to the water, and to our right the land seemed to have levelled out. Fortunately, I spotted the Liberation Monument we were hunting down, from a distance, in the space between two tall dark buildings, and we adjusted our way accordingly, winding our way down to the city's central square. It had taken almost an hour and a half to turn through the streets as we were coming up to the centre, several times we were convinced we'd passed the place, so it was not without some relief that we entered the square at the convergence of Chongqing's main roadways. The incongruity could not have been more striking, the transition of dark, wet stone into modern skyrises. It had been noisily crowded a few days beforehand, now it was an eerie reflection of that night, scantily clad, a few peasants and several immaculate youths who were starting to emerge from the various disco halls around the area. Sitting against the monument and watching those few passers-by; it was past three in the morning, we were hot and wet in the humid night air. We looked around us and tried to figure out exactly which of the roads crossing the square led to this fabled groovy cafe mentioned in our book.

Half an hour of consultation with the article we'd torn from the Lonely Planet, and checking against what buildings we could deduce were relative to our desired location, we finally located the place, standing at the very door where the author had entered some years before to a cafe which had long since closed down. Without coffee or jazz, or indeed anything else to do, we sat on the doorstep and resolved never to trust an outdated publication again. On the corner across the way, a man in pyjamas was giggling at us with great interest, proudly displaying his penis when he realised he'd caught our attention. We figured it was probably time to move on.