Three Gorges Project Hotel Yichang

... and I walked a while with them before stopping to watch the brightly neon-signed river boats passing by. There was a wonderful, chilled-out atmosphere, as people stopped to chat to each other, dogs stopped to take advantage of the odd tree, and couples stopped to sit, holding hands and looking over the river. But best of all was the activity in the landcaped narrow park strip that lined the walkway: I had got used ...

... a relatively reasonable person, and was praying no one would try to talk to me.<br>All that was keeping us sane was the thought of a hot shower and bed, but that was not to be. Neither was the hope of air conditioned cabins. We had apparently been upgraded to a 4 star cruise ship and weren&#8217;t sure we wanted to know what the 3 star one was like. So after a cold shower I laid, hot and sticky once again, on top of my bed and fell asleep, just happy that the long journey was at last over.

... flick. They got to the line up extra early (9:15 am) and were filmed for the nightly news as one of the many waiting to see the latest Harry Potter movie. All had been going to plan until they realized that the movie was only going to be in Chinese. Either their Chinese was not good enough or Harry was not as exciting in a language you didn't fully understand - at any rate, the kids got their money back after the first 30 minutes. <br> <br>Yichang <br ...

... clientele on board, we had fried eggs and bacon available, which was too good an opportunity to miss, even though we had seen on the tv that a huge batch of eggs from the Chinese mainland, had been destroyed in Hong Kong as seriously over contaminated with melamine. Eggs? It seems that the farmers had been feeding the melamine (presumably a job lot left over from the dairy farmers, who weren't using it any more) to the chickens. Ok, so maybe not too many eggs then ...

... around 30 minutes for a bus, and then boarded the bus for a 4 hour bus ride to Wanzhou where we boarded the boat around 7 pm, stopping at a scenic spot along the way to see a waterfall. The boat was certainly nothing like any cruise ship I've seen around the world, if I didn't get up close I wouldn't have thought it was even a passenger boat. Not surprisingly, I was the only westerner on the boat of 200-some odd people. Seeing that the 4-bed ...

... Aussie leg. David is as sarcastic as us - maybe moreso. So, to excuse any seemingly offensive remarks about Aussie's from now on, we would like to mention that when I asked David where the term "Pommy" came from, he said he didn't know or care but cheerfully elaborated the phrase to "Pommy *******s". Therefore, for the purposes of this blog (particularly the upcoming Aussie entries), we feel it is now our right to talk more "openly" about the lovely ...

... table and said, in broken English, "Very funny, you drink!". So just to be sociable.....well, you can guess the rest! We ended up being the last people in the bar at 1.30am, so we went across the road to indulge in some late night street noodles. Lorna tried to resist, for a whole 3 seconds, then as you can see from the photo, she dived straight in!! It was always going to be a challenge to get up at 7am tomorrow morning to board our boat!!

Well I say it has really been a while since I've gotten around to updating the travel blog. Today is the 3rd of April, and since my last blog entry, I've visited quite a few places- to include Yichang (Hubei province), Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Huangshan. For the purpose of brevity and clarity, I intend on writing a blog entry for each one, more or less (and also so that my map can be updated correctly... In any case- where does that put me... Oh, yes, of course, Yichang. Not ...

... In the morning we woke up early to get onto a smaller boat for a trip up a smaller river to see some smaller gorges. They were really pretty but partially obscured by hazy air. We arrived at a smaller town along the river bank where some local 'trackers' met us. Now this was embarassing! These guy rowed us up the river and then when the water got to shallow they got out of the boat, wrapped a rope around their shoulders and ...

... 8 hr train journey tomorrow........ 28/8 We are up bright and early to board the train. The waiting room is chocca and we sit on our backpacks. Then the train is announced and everyone dashes for the platform. It is a mad rush and we somehow end up at the back of the queue, maybe its becuase were english and too polite! Getting onto the train is a joke, everyone is crammed in with most people standing. It is soooo hot and there is no ...