Qing Jiang Hotel Yichang

... early; it's not the most pleasant place in the world, but I've learned it's only going to gert worse. Back in my bunk I read for a while, and before I know it, it's lights out. The loud chatter stops almost instantly and the Chinese take to their beds.

Then the snoring begins. A symphony of clogged nostrils courtesy of the thick Chinese air. I have no clue how it happened so quickly, I barely had a chance to pull up my covers. If ...

... plastic stools - so that's where we spent most of our time while on the boat. The first night we passed through the locks of the Three Gorges Dam. We also drank all of the beer that they had on the boat - I guess Chinese tourists don't drink quite as much while they're on vacation as Westerners do! Also - every morning at 5:30 am they would play REALLY loud Chinese music to wake everyone up. We could kind of turn the speaker in ...

... us how to properly prepare our food in the hot pot and then let us eat. We had plates with egg, fish, lamb, pork, chicken, lotus root, two kinds of mushrooms, bean curd, sausage, bok choy, and noodles- just to start! He kept asking if we wanted more, but it was definitely more than enough for both of us. It was so much better than the night before, but that wasn't really hard to do. Phil had a lot of information about the city too. We ...

... informed us that the city had been built within the last ten years. It has gained its fame because of the Three Gorges Dam project. Ten years ago, no one knew or cared about YiChang, no one came here, it was nothing. There are yellow flowers every where, it is much warmer and much greener than Beijing. The temperature was about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The yellow flowers are canola; where we get canola oil apparently. The city is very built up, not that ...

... only non-Chinese on the boat). It was a wider and smaller gorge than before, but still very pretty. At the end of the gorge we docked at our final destination, Yichang. From there David and I got the bus to Wuhan where we stayed the night before getting another bus to Huang Shan. We really enjoyed our cruise, it was very relaxing with lots of pretty scenery, and we are glad we had a private cabin after seeing the state of the lower cabin toilets as we left...

... so great!" We then told a couple from Yorkshire and they muttered "oh..well, it's finding time isn't it?..." and turned away! Cultural differences abound. I went to the beauty salon to have my hair washed and blow dried. I had the most beautiful head massage at the sink and then with a towel wrapped around my hair, I got my ears cleaned out with cotton buds!!! They don't do that in Coventry!!! (David: I went on deck and watched the first of the three gorges ...

... people! The reference number she showed us was different to our reference number but this didn't seem a problem to her! Nor did the fact that the ship name wasn't correct - she said it had two names! We don't think our anxieties were unfounded but nonetheless we agreed it was at least a bed for the night so we'd sort it out in the morning (assuming another English couple didn't appear in the night and take our beds!). We thought it somewhat ...

... singing begins. Good god, there was even kareoke on the way back. But the scenery was really, really good and we even saw the famous hanging coffins that stick out of the cliff (these wooden coffins are reputedly thousands of years old, yeah right). We went out in the town of Wushan that night with a recommendation of a good restaurant from Alice. The town had a fantastic atmosphere (I'm guessing because it's so remote, no roads ...

... comestibles somehow perch along these cliffs lending a wide range of different patchwork colours to the slopes. On the eastern end of our trip (Badong) there are a large number of mandarins in the trees which resemble christmas baubles from a distance. At Wushan we took a taxi over the lesser 3 gorges and a boat back, of course the taxi driver was trying to rip us off but a lovely photo of him and his car deterred him. In fact it seems that the ...

... that day we finally got to post the first few days of our travelblog up from a local internet café. Then went back to the hotel, expecting a good night sleep and a better day tomorrow! Jour 9 : Samedi 13 octobre 2007 JingZhou - YiChang Odometer: 1988 - 2107 (119) Départ: 7 am. Arrivée 10 am (3 heures) Pour la première fois, nous sommes partis comme prévu: tôt ! On a conduit jusqu'à YiChang pour voir la rivière Yangzi ( Chang Jiang « long fleuve ...