IMPERIAL COURT HOTEL Yichang

... Our National Guide comes from Wuhan and told us that there are 16 universities in the area with a total of 1 million students. Then we had a 4-½ hour bus ride to Yichang, the port for our Yangtze River cruise. Even though it was a long travel day, it was actually nice to sit a little and take a nap. <br><br>Yichang is considered a small city since it has only 4 million people. A city has to be over 4 million to be a large city. We had ...

An early rise to see the Qutang Gorge, we were up on deck by 6.45 to commence to passage through this most beautiful and spectacular gorge.<br><br>After breakfast we got onto a small 2 story boat and headed down a smaller Gorge, or they call it a Lesser Gorge. On the way we saw caves on the cliffs and I mean cliffs, where they placed the coffins of their dead 2000 years ago. It is mind boggling to see how they got these things into these ...

... of the initial problems with going to see the Three Gorges Dam was we were not sure how to get out. Our only option before getting there was to take a 24 hour train ride to Nanjing. Nobody was too excited about that. We had weighted many other options as they unfolded but when I got to the train station to buy the tickets for a hard sleeper I was told that the only thing left were hard seats. Okay, 16 hours hard seat was bad enough but even I realized it ...

... we stopped to go ashore at the 'Ghost City' of 'Fengdu', which was an old Buddhist temple built on a hillside. Running the gauntlet of stalls and hawkers, selling anything from fruit, booze, souveneirs and even porno dvd's, we climbed the 600 steps in the heavy rain (are we having fun yet?) The series of small shrines were dedicated to the underworld side of Taoism, including a set of statues of ghosts, which was quite apt for Halloween! There was even a 'torture ...

... in several Chinese blogs as many curious passengers wanted to take a picture with the strange foreigner. It was also nice spending a few hours talking with some of the younger middle-school aged children on board, since they don't ask any questions about politics, aren't shop owners only interested in getting money, and don't have ulterior motives such as getting valuable free English speaking practice like many college students here. My roommates ...

... they were very small shorts!). The scenery was again very impressive. At one point we saw a 100m high and 40m wide cave entrance; our guide told us you used to be able to walk through the cave for 8km to the next village but since the waters have risen you now need to take a small boat. We also saw a 'hanging coffin' - perched precariously in a small niche on the cliff face. We saw several of these later on as well; they remain something of a mystery but it is ...

... move on. However, during our wait to get to the top of the ship-lock, we got to see the OLYMPIC torch run by. We just happened to be in the right place and the right time for this. You will see from our pics we were not THAT close, but it was quite exciting to be a part of the Olympic spirit! We won't bore you with ALL the details and history of the 3 Gorges project. Basically, the Chinese built this HUGE dam to save ...

... attention to sporting activities, and you constantly see them doing Tai Chi outside and things like that (actually, the Tai Chi people were right across from the basketball people...) I also discovered the local musical instrument store, which I used for impromptu performances of Chinese pop music and others. I played there twice and everyone seemed to be happy. The third time, I guess the staff had changed, and they demanded that I pay 5 RMB per hour, and use an electronic piano on ...

... we found out why you shouldn't overpay people who you feel sorry for. Word spread around the streets of Feng Jie that Westerners were paying big money for a few minutes of work and when our mini van pulled into the boat terminal after leaving the hotel we were greeted with dozens of screeching people who were pushing their way into the van and agressively tugging our bags out of our hands. Paul's bag was taken and he had to ...

... after another and are undecided whether we want to go for it. He gets more and more agitated. We finally decide to go for it when he brings the price down for what, we still dont know! We get our "treatments" it is actually an exended foot massage, quite vigourous on the pressure points and has both of us flinching at points. I think they asked in chinese whether it hurts? To this we probably just nodded, so they carry on in the same vein!