Lai Feng Hotel Jingzhou

... sunset – while Lee had a local lesson in Chinese Chess, before boarding our Yangzi River Cruise vessel. After dinner we were also lucky enough to experience some local fireworks also.

The Yangzi River is undeniably one of the world's great and legendary waterways.

... Hopefully we will get time to finally post something on the blog! Jour 8: vendredi 12 Octobre 2007 Wuhan - JingZhou Odometer 1878- 2085 (207 km) Départ 12:00 Arrivée 8:30 (8:30) On s'est tellement couchés tard hier soir avec ce problème de klaxon que l'on n'était pas prêts avant l'heure du déjeuner ! On s'est fait un Macdo... Bon shame on us, mais la le riz on n'en pouvait plus... En plus ça va sûrement être la grande ville ...

... below the dam in the dry season with controlled water release. Thirdly and probably most importantly, the dam will be able to control flooding which has claimed millions of lives in the past with a major floods every 6 years or so. The normal operating water height in the dam will be 175m above sea level. In the rainy season this will be dropped to 145m thus a huge amount of water can be stored and released gradually to prevent major flash floods ...

it was our last chance to check out the morning chanting by the monks so we crawled out of bed at 4.30 am at the first sound of the drumming. spent about an hour standing at tthe open door of the temple watching the monks. the one drumming was really getting into it. however, it didn't change the fact that it was bloody early and there's only so much chanting i can take before 7am so i went back to bed after an ...

... due to the fact that there was nothing of interest beyond the Three Gorges Dam, which we would reach later today, I decided I would leave the boat at the dam and continue to Yichang by bus. The Intrepid group were also leaving today so a few of us swapped e-mail addresses and Suzie gave me a list of useful English sites for when I reached Beijing as well as giving me the necessary Chinese writing to show to get the bus to ...

... a pretty good idea of how big it is. Having already seem the aswan dam and the hoover dam, its really just another dam to us, being as we are, utterly underwhelmed by 'structural engineering' :) There was the optional tour, obviously! but we didnt bother ! I could see it quite well enough from the boat without shelling out a further 170 yuan. Going through the locks was cool. The doors are truely INORMOUS!!!We got close enough to the sides as we passed through for us to drag ...

On the 15th we started our long 18 hour journey to Wuhan. It was a decent train ride and I finished up Utopia and started on the Simirallions. For dinner I had some noodles the local store at Yangshou had sold to me saying they were vegetarian. I just didn't put the oil and liquid seasoning on as a precaution. They were good enough to eat and along with the bananas I was happy enough with dinner. We got to Wuhan about 4 ...

We meet Californian friends Stu and Wei in Chongqing to take a 3-day cruise down the Yangtze river and through the famous three gorges. Wei's family in China have organised the cruise for us, and we look forward to having her, a native speaker, look out for us and especially to order food in restaurants! One night we head out to a Sichuanese hot pot restaurant. This is a bit like Mongolian hotpot (see entry for Hohot), except the broth has a local blend of hot hot hot Sichuan spices in ...

The Yulin turned out to be a modern, clean and comfortable hotel that was cheaper than anything in our guidebook....great result ! Two points to note though: there are no English speaking staff and there was a suspicious flashing light that appeared to be coming from behind a mirrored light socket in our bedroom. Could this be a hidden camera ?!?!? We cannot confirm but who knows ! We took a taxi to the ferry booking office early in the morning to see ...

... to Sheck O on the South East**n side of Hong Kong island. Although quiet for a weekday, th**e seemed quite a numb** of lifeguards in attendance (I think they outnumb**ed the visitors), and they busied themselves with any numb** of toys - rafts with oars, tractors, jet skis - you name it they had it! P**haps the most annoying habit was the regular broadcasting of the stringent rules on beach behaviour, first in Cantonese and then in English at a noise level high enough to ensure ear ...