The train ride to Yichang was a "soft sleeper" which basically means that the cars had rooms with 4 bunks in each room...the beds were not any more "soft" than the "hard" sleeper train we were on. It was 18 hours of FUN! Jana even slept until noon...the whole cabin slept late which made the time go by quicker. We finally got off at 3:45 pm or so...

It's day 3 and we are having such a fabulous time. The Yangtze River is a misty, slow running river. This morning we visited the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectic power projuect. Traverse the massive Thre Gorges shiplocts and see the dramatic shoals and verdant cliffs of Xiling Gorge. Very impressive and...

Again i used the earplugs to great effect but one of them did fall out during the night so i was woken up earlier than i wanted by the noise of the train and the other passengers moving around. We all grabed our packs and got off of the train at Wuhan where we wakled into rain!! It wasnt too bad but its rain all the same!! And the heat was tempe...

Our trip included a tour of the Three Gorges Dam first thing. It was impressive seeing it up close, although it's not the highest or widest in the world, it does hold back the most amount of water! (For the engineers - the dam will be able to produce the equivalent of 16 nuclear power stations). After the tour we entered the final part of Xiling...

off the boat finally this morning at 9am. some rough looking people around. seems rice wine was downed last night in our absence! seems lee was chatted up by several chinese men - even got given a rose by one of them. onto a coach to go check out the three gorges dam. hoardes of chinese tourists again. queued to get on the dam. a rare treat - it...

Up early the next day to fly to Yichang a city on the Yangtze where we were to pick up our river liner to cruise 600 kilometers to Chongquing going through the famous three gorges. We arrived in Yichang late in the afternoon and were taken by coach for a tour of this city before going to dinner at a hotel in town. The food was very good and we b...

On arrival to the city if Yichang we all caught a taxi to the office where our train tickets were being kept. We arrived to discover that the tickets had been purchased not according to our wishes, but we were again to be split up in different "rooms" on the train. Anyway it was done, no amount of arguing could change the ticket positions, howev...

Rachel, Ari and myself headed to a local pub in Yangshuo to relax before our massive journey to Yichang. It was a fantastic opportunity to let our hair down after what has been a massive trip so far. The journey began at 5pm where we caught our bus to Guilin's train station. Talk about a hectic train station... the locals push and shove their wa...

Yesterday morning up early again (Chinese torture I think) to do Fengdu 'Ghost' City which is a Chinese tourist attraction based around some legends. This comprised of seeing Fengdu in the dark (was about 6am) and walking up to a surreal 'amusement' park which comprised of life size models depicting lots of different stories. Most amusing part o...

Early, about 07.30h, after breakfast, we climbed aboard buses to view the TGP. It was rainy and misty - too bad as it would have been nice to see the project more clearly. On the way, our large-group guide told us that he himself had been relocated, and he is very happy. In fact, the government took a survey, and, of those relocated, 80% are ver...