Jin Jiang Oriental Chongqing

... br>traffic rules. Because, basically, I never think teachers or adults are<br>forever right; in other words, who did make this rule that they must be<br>right? However, I do understand the aftermath of not following traffic<br>disciplines. Here, from my very personal experience, I conclude that I<br>should keep questioning where and why some rules come? Through seeking<br>my answers, I discard stereotypic costume and firmly comply ...

... journey down we seemed to be getting deeper &amp; deeper into dark communist block style country &amp; we thought it was going to be dark &amp; dreary from there on in. That all changed though with the Yangtze River cities- Chongqing, Yichang &amp; Wuhan. They're all massive with a great blend of old &amp; new China &amp; a touch of Europe. I guess this is because they're on the Yangtze, which ...

... twenty other people on it - all Chinese. At one point a couple of older guys came back and started speaking to Andy, who, like Trav and me, speaks absolutely zero Chinese. Although he signalled this multiple times in multiple ways, the guys kept talking to him. This, we have discovered, is the Chinese way of doing things. The white people obviously don't understand a word, so we'll make them understand by using more words ...

... and they are so bad that my stomach turns thinking about them. Anywayz, the past few days have been spent on the Yangze River, we had a fairly nice, cosy and slightly musty room, in 1st class too! We are travelling in style!... but we had a window so that was good to freshe the air. The bathroom was definitely the most different and I'd say worst designed we have used so far, but at least it was a western style toilet. We had ...

Xi'an is a very old city, maybe 4,000 years old? The first official dynasty in China claimed Xi'an as its capital the, Qin dynasty. The city itself I was not really a big fan of. We went to a really great history museum, it had ancient bowls and pots which made me think of Barb and Willy collecting old stuff. There also was the "ancestor of China" which was a 1.5 million year old skull. Like Beijing a lot of the ...

Spent most of the day on a bus to get to our boat for the Three Gorges trip. We were on a public bus that was pretty cramped and had a very dodgy gearbox. The driver couldn't get the bus in any gear and kept stalling. Saw lots more coutryside and lots more smog. Around all the cities the Chinese seem to be building furiously and knocking anything ...

Hi there! (Rosie says) Not really, its not a toilet, but this city is destined to become the worlds largest as the government is building the famous 3 gorges dam. Anyway, this city is quite dirty, there are a few cockroaches in this cafe actually but I am getting used to them I am sorry to say! We are spending the day here before travelling to Kaili, where there are lots of "minority villages" . This term sounds a bit strange to me but it basically ...

... sedate.....we boarded pretty bamboo rafts and enjoyed the limestone scenery.....until we got stuck on the rocks and were forced to abandon raft to see if our combined weight (4 people) would help to be off the raft. However where our driver decided to drop us off was in the middle of a Water buffollo pack. They were nice buffollo and only one looked a bit scary.... The following day we did a cycleride in the countryside which was such good fun, it was been ...

... to see what happened. There were a couple of other stops through the course of the day but Leah and I elected to stay on the boat, I was rather chuffed as I managed to get all of my washing done (as soon as we had returned from Fengdu all the of the Chinese had washed their clothes!) and it dried very quick in the heat of the sun which by lunchtime was extremely hot. Leah rested whilst I tried to catch up on my journal, and other chores. The river is ...