Big Update (We can't access our blog in China!)

Monday 15th June:
This morning we managed to get our Visa applications in and were asked to collect them on Thursday. We then made our way back to the Museum of Art. An exhibition called Louis Vuitton, the Creative Years was on and was quite interesting. The building was quite lovely, with great views of the river from huge windows. After lunch we met Simon back in Mong Kok and explored this area. We visited a lovely cafe; we were wandering along a street, when Simon suddenly turned into what looked like a private entrance. We walked up to the first floor and there was a really comfy cafe with wifi and games. After a cuppa we visited the ladies market. We were going to move on to the night market, but the heavens opened so instead we went to a Japanese restaurant where Brent had his first sushi . Have to say it's not our favourite thing, but the place was very swish. We wandered along to a dessert restaurant afterwards, where we had delicious sweet treats.and dessert It was still raining hard so we headed back to Cosmo's, the local, for several beers, and more darts. We'd intended to have an early night, but after I'd won my first game of 701 ever Prudence called to say she was on her way with 2 girlfriends. Ended up a late night but lots of fun. Prudence,Beatrice and Florence have been friends since primary school and had a good laugh learning to play.

Tuesday 16th June:
We went to Lantau island for the day today. This involved a 40 mintute ferry ride followed by a 40 minute bus ride. This was all very enjoyable and we are very impressed with the transport system here in Hong Kong. We arrived at Tai O fishing village around 2pm and had lovely fresh shrimps for lunch. We then had a wander around this traditional village. We'd been later getting up than originally planned ( thanks to the late night darts!) and decided not to do the boat trip...there are apparently pink dolphins near here, but we reckoned the chances of seeing them were slim.... MISTAKE! When we got to the bus station to get the bus up to the monastery and big buddha we met 2 nice German lads, who'd taken the trip and seen the dolphins. We were a bit disappointed to have to miss this, but its one for the next trip eh? We did enjoy the Big Buddha though: it was pretty quiet when we got there, being late in the day. The area was set up for tourists though and they are currently developing it further, with construction work underway. We climbed the steps up to where the huge Buddha sits. Great views and lovely photo spots. Then we had a look at the monastery. We'd have liked to get the cable car down but unfortunately it was closed, so instead we got a bus then the MTR back down to the Central area. We were very proud of ourselves when we arrived at the Globe dead on time (7pm) ready to meet Simon and Fran, the friend from West Bridgford, who's been here for almost 10 years. When we entered the pub we were surprised when the barmaid remembered us and what we drank! Amazing! It was fun to see Fran: she hasn''t changed a bit and the 4 of us enjoyed Western food ( good pies) and a good chat. Later on we said goodbye to Simon and Fran took us to an interesting bar, where we met Ray, who'd had a late parent evening... with cocktails no less! The bar was very classy with a huge, circular bar and a corridor with private rooms... we weren't too sure what for! Ray and Fran talked to us about their lives in Hong Kong and their house in France and we told them all about our travels. They have a good life here and it made us think about the different scenario at home.

Wednesday 17th June:
This morning we decided to have a look at the park just across the road from our hotel. Kowloon Park was absolutely lovely: it had a tranquil atmosphere, with lots of walkways, green areas, sculptures and birds, including loads of pink flamingoes. We spotted a fantastic swimming pool with inside and outside areas. It looked very clean and was quite busy... something else for next time we reckon. Late morning we visited the Museum of History, which was another great building with interesting exhibits on the story of Hong Kong. We met up with Simon after school and wandered along the beautiful harbour front with the avenueof stars ( a bit like Hollywood, but not so tacky! It was a beautifull evening at the end of a very sunny day and the walk was gorgeous. We had a couple of beers on the front and then met Simon's NET friends and went to a popular local restaurant called Tung Po or Dai Pai Dong? This was previously a street cafe, but is now part of a complex that has a veggie market on one floor, a meat market on another and restaurants on the 3rd floor. It was quite a culture shock when we got up to it: huge round tables all full of locals enjoying their dinner and all chatting loudly. The noise was overwhelming until we acclimatised. Simon and his friends organised the food as we had no idea. In fact Simon had pre ordered some of the specials as they can run out. The food was excellent: amongst other dishes we enjoyed roast goose, special rice, huge crispy prawns, dumplings. Oh no... I can't remember what else... but there was absolutely loads of it and with the circular table with moving middle it was a really social way of eating. The food was served with the usual jasmine tea and we also ordered beer, which was served in bowls.

Thursday 18th June:
We collected our visas first thing today and then headed for the New Zealand Airways offices to change our flight home. This took longer than expected as we turned the wrong way out of the visa office and walked for a good half hour before realising, adding about an hour to the trip! Oh well, at least this doesn't happen often. We are now going home on 20th July, when our 30 day visa expires. We popped back to the hotel room before meeting Simon near to his school. We visited a lovely park with him called the Nam Lian gardens. This was superb, with a good collection of bonsai trees and beautiful water areas. Brent and I had a very nice vegetarian meal in the restaurant, which is behind a waterfall! Then we walked to the nearby Chi Lin Nunnery and the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Around 4pm we went to Simon's school and met some of his colleagues and had a look around the school. We were immediately made welcome by Henry, who brought us a very welcome cold drink. It's a real shame that the children are not in school this week due to the Swine flu epidemic, but it was still interesting to see the building. Its in a high rise block with different year groups on different floors. Henry, a teacher of English and Maths showed us round with Simon and pointed out a multimedia area , where children could produce their own films. We headed back to the staffroom where each teacher has a work space. Then it was time to move on to where we were going to join a group of staff at their weekly game of badminton. We took a minibus to Steve's apartment block. Steve teaches mandarin and lives in the most gorgeous building, with fantastic views, gym, swimming pools and badminton courts. We spent a very happy couple of hours and both really enjoyed playing. Brent, who played regularly for years until about a year ago, really loved it! He and Simon played together and he was impressed with how much Simon's improved. Afterwards we headed to the Chao Inn, where we met Corinna again and all enjoyed another fabulous meal. This restaurant has huge fish tanks at the entrance and after 9pm reduces it's prices. We were touched when the staff insisted on paying for our meals, which were really superb. What lovely people.

Friday 19th June:
Off on the MTR to see the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas: oh my goodness! It was boiling hot and very humid and their must have been 10000+ steps up to the temple. Each step had a Buddha on each side in different poses. It was almost tacky, but funny too. By the time we reached the top we were sweating profusely and ready for a cold drink. The actual temple was quite lovely, with the actual 10000 Buddhas in small alcoves in the walls of the temple. We headed back down the steps and had a look in the local shopping centre here in an in Sha Tin. Later on we met Simon and went up the funicular railway to the Peak. This was wonderful. We watched the sunset with the most fantastic views of HK. We then took the minibus down and went to a nice Mexican cafe in Soho. We ended up having a few beers in some of the fun bars in this area and before heading home Brent enjoyed a game of pool against a local player. Another lovely day.

Saturday 20th June – our last day in Hong Kong
We headed over to Mong Kok this morning and managed to get our last bits of shopping done ready for China. We even bought a few new clothes, which was nice and allowed us both to throw a few items out!! In the afternoon we were all a bit tired, so decided to go to see a film at one of the local cinemas. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts were on in the film 'Duplicity' which we thought might be good. It turned out to be very disappointing, but at least it was cool...maybe a bit too cool!! We headed back to Simon's place where we copied our photos and left them and some postcards with Simon for posting. Simon wasn't feeling too good and we decided to have a bit of a rest before deciding what to do later. In the end we went to a noodle bar for dinner and then had a few beers back at the flat. Dan's sister, Louise, had arrived from England and several friends joined us. They'd booked a karaoke room for after 11pm. Simon wasn't feeling up to that, but we went along and had a brilliant time. There were about 10 of us ushered into a small comfy square room, with seats all around the edge and a huge TV with karaoke at the front as well as a play station. Several mikes were passed around and everyone joined in the singing..not like anything at home. Great!

Sunday 21st June – off to China!
This morning we started to pack up our stuff and had a local cafe Coral breakfast. Then Simon came over. We finished our packing and went to Delifrance for a drink together before heading to the MTR and saying our goodbyes. We felt very sad to say goodbye to Simon, who'd been such a fantastic host. We got the train to Shenshen and had a couple of hours to spare before getting the onward night train to Guilin. We found a nice hotel / restaurant ( the cafe Berlin), where we shared a meal and enjoyed a drink before heading to Macdonalds, where we had burger and fries!! The train station was very well organised and about 30 minutes before the train left we were ushered down to the platform, along with hoards of Chinese people. We quickly found our sleeper and were delighted with it. There were 2 sets of bunks with bedding, lights and a flask of hot water...so we could enjoy our Malay tea! We awaited our fellow travellers, but no one came, so we had the whole compartment to ourselves...great! We both slept quite well and it was interesting to see the high rise blocks disappear and be replaced by green rice paddies and country villages. In the morning before we knew it (and before we were ready!) we arrived and in a mad rush left the train:. I left behind my sandalwood bangle... damn! As we came off the platform we were directed to a tourist office. Here an excellent English speaker talked us through the boat ride to Yangshuo and was also able to describe the other cruise we were thinking of doing: from chongquing down the Yangzi river. In the end we booked ourselves on the morning cruise leaving at 10am. Nick, a lovely guy from Seattle, whod been working in Shenzhen teaching in and International School, joined us, along with a Finnish couple. We were picked up and driven to the port. On the way the guide told us some of the background to the area and the different names for the Karst scenery we were about to see. Her English was difficult to understand at times and punctuated by mini tests to check whether we were listening. . have to say we were too tired to play the learning game here and left that to the others, who performed equally badly! We eventually arrived at a transit point where we were given little Panda stickers. We were told to take a seat in a large souvenir shop where it was clear we would be part of a bigger tour group sailing down the Li river. We eventually boarded our boat with about 50 other people and sat on seats that looked to have been taken from coaches and tables nailed to floor. We started the journey with a talk from the English guide, who described the various rock formations we would be seeing: the husband rock and the 9 horses amongst them. We soon got to know an American couple who were sitting next to us. He ran a t-shirt on-line business, whilst she was a Romanian emigrant who had lived in Hungary before the US. She had several degrees and was currently teaching French, would you believe... so we had a lot to talk about. In the end, after he'd made several racist comments, we realised that we had very little in common, but nevertheless, meeting them was interesting.

We got off the boat in Yangshuo and left them to their afternoon tour, whilst we wondered down West Steet, stopping at the global cafe to get our thoughts together on accommodation. Once again we struck lucky! Whilst Brent had left for the bank, I struck up a conversation with the waitress, who was really helpful. I mentioned Bamboo Guest House as somewhere we might stay. The couple next to s then mentioned that they were staying at the one down the road that had just been opened and it was very clean and cost 100Y (about £9) We went to look and the room was not only spacious with a good bathroom but also very clean. We booked in for a couple of nights, which in the end turned into 4 nights.

Monday 22nd June
Today we needed to chill, so did! We wandered back around the town taking photos and soaking up the atmosphere: West street is just one tiny part of the town and is very geared up for tourists, with lots of bars and restaurantss. Past this street the town is actually quite large, with commercial areas as well as a lovely and very well used park, which we really enjoyed. It was interesting to see lots of older people sitting at stone tables playing cards and various other games. In the evening we found a nice bar, selling good beer and food...all very reasonable. ( we think it was called the Karst bar, and it advertised climbing trips). It was nice not to feel pressured to do anything and we enjoyed relaxing with our books.

Tuesday 23rd June
We wandered out and about this morning and climbed a steep path to get a birds eye view of the town. This wasn't far but it was very humid and we were quickly drenched in sweat! We thought about going to Moon Hill, a nearby attraction. A younger couple in the hotel had climbed this the day before after cycling there...but we decided against: a/ it was just too hot and b/ I wasn't confident about the main road which we'd have to face at the start of the ride. Brent thought about going along, but the heat put him off too. Shame really, especially as there's also a fun cave near there where you can slide in mud and in natural hot pools.. Still we enjoyed our wander and the home made lemonade back at the hotel. Tonight we headed off to see the show which we'd booked through the hotel.. it was directed by the guy who directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing olympics and turned out to be a real treat: A huge open air theatre was set up in front of the most majestic view of the river surrounded by the limestone karst ( small, but impressive mountains). A cast of hundreds then performed, mostly from boats on the river. The lighting was incredible and the background mountains changed from blue, to green and red... quite beautiful. We bought the video we were so impressed...( and it was dead cheap!)

Wednesday 24th June
Today we'd booked to do a kayak trip nearby. The day began when Mark, who was our guide, asked if we would mind using motorbikes, rather than a taxi, to get to the venue. At first we thought he meant us each to ride a bike, but we then realised he meant us to ride pillion. I went with Mark and really enjoyed the ride, through the local countryside. We got a real insight into local life driving down narrow, picturesque lanes and later rocky paths. We saw locals working in the paddy fields and I was impressed by the many fields of vegetables. After about half an hour Mark began to get calls on his mobile, which turned out to be more folk interested in kayaking. Each call took a bit of time and Brent was just starting to worry by the time we arrived. Have to say we both realised how blasé we've become about taking risks.. it was only whe Mark stopped his bike in the middle of nowhere that I thought...what if Brent's not here? I could be anywhere!! En route with Mark we'd had an interesting chat about having children: he'd explained that he had one young son and that he felt very stressed by being a father. I think he was also concerned about the risk of having more children. He asked how I'd felt when I had my first child and when I said happy, he said that he too felt happiness, but also worry. Hard work for him to make enough money for his little family...made me think and realise how lucky I'd been.

Anyway we alll met up fine and wandered down to the river where we decided on a double kayak. Mark then left us with a guy who spoke no English, but who would follow us downstream on his bamboo raft...fishing at the same time! Any problems and he'd phone Mark. Have to say there was no safety check, capsize drill or anything. We were given a couple of old life jackets, heavy wooden paddles, and left to it. We both expected to see Mark later, but no...he'd gone off presumably to meet his new group! Despite all that we really enjoyed the paddle along the river. It was good to get bit of exercise and there were some good views. We stopped around 11.30 at a stilted cafe for lunch and this proved another interesting experience as moored right next to us was a bamboo raft. As we arrived we noticed that a very attractive young woman appeared to be having her hair cut on the raft...was it a floating hairdresser's salon? As we ate our lunch, which was very good, we watched as the hairdresser fitted a wig, in a bob stlye over the girl's long hair. We soon realised that a young man was taking photographs of her with the different hair styles. It turned out she was modelling for a fashion magazine! As we continued to enjoy our meal 2 fellow paddlers appeared upstream and we watched as they moored up beside us. They joined us for lunch and it turned out one was an American, working in London. Apparently everywhere he went in
China he was being mistaken for a famous basket ball player. He was a lovely guy...very fit and with a great laugh. His fellow padddler was from Argentina. They were both really nice. We all enjoyed the bizzare entertainment of the hairdresser working away on the fashion model, whilst right next to them a local fisherman stopped to gut his fish! Before continuing downstream Brent and I had a quick walk in the village. It seemed very old and we spotted a huge poster of Mao on the wall of a house we passed. We continued our journey until our 'guide' pointed to a bridge,where we had to stop. As we wandered off up the road, expecting to see Mark at any moment, we spotted our fellow paddlers, just arriving. The fit american yelled how he'd been really trying to catch us and was impresssed with our speed! Cool! We followed our leader through a very inteThe huge open fronted buildings included regular shops like a pharmacy and supermarket. Very interesting. We spotted an old banger of a bus at one side of the road and our hearts sank as we were ushered into it: it was empty with no sign of a driver. Oh well, clearly we weren't going to see Mark again. We sat patiently hoping a driver would appear. After 10 minutes or so our fellow paddlers appeared, along with their guide and all got into the bus. it turned out that the american was supposed to get a bus from yangshao to Guilin at 3pm and was then due to fly back to London around 5pm! We sat waiting for the bus driver to arrive and making jokes about the dire straits he found himself in. We'll never know if he made it, but it was certainly doubtful. That evening we wandered around West Street and enjoyed a meal in a different bar. It was interesting to watch a large mixed race group at a nearby table. We guessed that some Australian teachers were saying goodbye to their chinese colleagues... pure speculation, but they were all very fond of each other.

Thursday 25th June
We took time to pack our things in the morning knowing that the local buses ran quite regularly. This has become an automatic process now. We have two bags each and sort of know what goes in each. Downstairs we had breakfast to the accompaniment of some old classic favourites being searched on the internet by a British guy about our age. Songs like Moon River and Artists like Andy Williams came and went. This made a sort of surreal atmosphere to our last meal there. Having collected our bags we walked up to the bus station and fell upon it by luck rather than judgement. ( My sense of direction has been letting me down of late and I certainly hadnt got to grips with this small area of Yangshou ) As we approached the bus area a young lad immediately jumped out and said ' bus to Guilin ' as if reading our minds. The next question is always ' how much ? ' We knew it should have been in region of 55Y so when he said 105Y we carried on to next bus. The next minute he is pulling out 15Y and showing us. A bargain – we must have haggled local fare.
The ride to Guilin was scary to say the least. Linda seems to have become immune to this sort of driving and just told me to relax and watch the Kung Fu film that was showing. I struggled to take my eyes off the road as the driver would overtake oblivious of the fact that cars where coming straight at him. He seemed to be playing a constant game of chicken and luckily nobody challenged him prefering to veer onto the area reserved for bikes and scooters instead.
As luck would have it we entered Guilin on the same road as the station so we were able to cross and make enquiries regarding our overnight sleeper. Through a series of mime acts we were able to show the information guy what we wanted. Luckily we had written down the number of the train so he wrote down the rest in Chinese. I found an ATM while Linda looked after the bags. Then it was trying to buy the ticket. Trains are very popular in China and the queues at all the counters were large. I stood behind one of about 10 that were open hoping that i didnt have to be in a specific one for tickets to Chongqing. The line gradually got shorter until there were only 4 people left at which point the woman selling the tickets looked above her pointed to some times in blue ( which must have been her hours of work ) and closed her curtain. I together with the other people waiting joined the ends of other queues – grrrrrrrr. Much gnashing of teeth as again I joined the queue where two young guys seemed to be having a long debate with the ticketeer while everbody behind got irritated. Time was passing quickly and I was aware of the need to hurry as our train would be leaving in 30 mins. When I eventually arrived at the head of the queue I had the problem of explaining where we wanted to go. Even showing him the written Chinese did not fully solve the problem as he seemed puzzled that I wanted two tickets. Fortunately a lad close by had better English and managed to explain to him my needs. Sorted – rushed back to Linda, got bag through scanner went to waiting room. Would you believe it...the train was delayed. Murphys Law.

On eventually boarding the train we found we had bought tickets for the hard sleeper. This means you are in an open corridor carriage where 6 beds are together set in tiers of 3. We had been told of this so it wasn't that much of a shock that it had happened given the price we were charged and the language problem.
Two young girls occupied the lower tiers so Linda and I got into the second tier which meant a scramble up a ladder. Fortunately there was some room to stack our luggage. We had become good by now at passing the time so the long 20 hour journey wasn't too daunting.

Lin here: As we hadn't had time to shop for food when we got hungry we ventured to the buffet car... what a laugh! The staff there were highly amused by our efforts to get food we recognised and when we pointed to the mandarin for egg, in our phrase book the waiter mimed a chicken laying an egg.. very funny. In the end the egg fried rice and chicken we ordered were quite nice...a lot better than British Rail food!

Managed to sleep on and off and both noticed that one of the girls below us slept the whole way. When we'd arrived on board she''s been in the middle of a romantic goodbye with her boyfriend. She obviously needed to catch up on her sleep!

Friday 26th June
The morning dawned with that vague sense of insecurity. Were we at the right station? How would we progress from here with no language and no English signage. In China we definitely felt like foreigners in a foreign land. We exited the station onto a huge square with people going about their business everywhere. We clearly looked lost as we consulted our inadequate map to get our bearings because it wasn't long before a kindly voice asked if we needed help. On looking around we saw a jovial bespectacled man who clearly had good English. On explaining our situation he pointed out that we were not in the middle of the city and would need to catch a bus there which would cost 1Y. He proceeded to lead us to the bus stop and to our surprise also got on the bus too. He introduced himself as ' Jimmy ' and he was heading to work in the town centre. He asked what our plans were and when we mentioned getting a boat down the Yangtze he announced that he worked for one of the cruise companies Was this more than coincidence we wondered. Linda and I had similar thoughts as the bus took us to the city centre. Did he just wait around the station in order to get business from foreigners arriving at the station. We were too relieved to worry about it long term and even after our time in Chongqing we felt the same. When our bus arrived Jimmy took us directly to a hotel the'd recommended, aware of our budget. It had reasonable prices and we were soon booked us in. At this point we thought Jimmy may leave us to it, but no, he helped with our bags up to the room and then said he would wait in the lobby so we could accompany him to his office. Our suspicions of him being a tout increased but we realised that without him we would really have struggled. We went along with him to his office, taking a short cut from the hotel. Jimmy asked what we were looking for and we said we couldn't afford the luxury cruise, so settled for the domestic one Jimmy said he could get us a good price in a first class cabin, with private bathroom. We were only able to put down a deposit as cash was low at this point, but this was fine with Jimmy. He talked us throught the daily schedule of trips from the boat but we were too tired to make decisions. Jimmy said we could decide tomorrow, when we would also pay the balance of the trip. He then showed us the way to a shopping area with a Starbucks and Subway. At thie point he seemed to be attaching himself to us and got as far as crossing the road with us. We then explained that we would enjoy exploring the city on our own, and thankfully he didn't take offense, but left us to it.

We headed off in the direction he had suggested for some sustenance. We came across a sort of mock medieval frontage of building climbing up the steep riverside which cunningly disguised a modern shopping centre. It wasnt long before Linda and I were thouroughly lost inside this labyrinth. After a good half an hour wandering around we finally found Subway on the street level together with a rather tacky mock pirates galleon. Our desire to be in this western chain of eateries needs some explanation as: normally we would steer well clear of them. At this stage in our travels though we needed to have some western food. We were tired both from the length of our journey and from having to constantly work out directions and language. Anywhere that has the air of the familiar becomes a little oasis. So it was with great relief that we ordered a sandwich and a cold drink.

It had been very difficult in the intense heat to make decisions about where to go in this huge city of 32 million people. We ended up just trying to take care of the practicalities like getting more money. The street maps of this huge city were also next to useless as they were so small I needed a magnifying glass to see them. Life was definitely not easy here.
On leaving the restaurant we were amazed to bump into Jimmy again made us wonder if he was touting for our business. In the end after he'd given us some ideas for places to visit, we decided our bumping into him was probably a coincidence..but we were never sure! We were definitely too tired to take up his suggesions, which involved bus rides and In the end we went back to the hotel to recover and take refuge from the heat. Later on we ventured out and found our way to Liberation Square. This was the pedestrianised centre of the shopping district and once more we were struck by the number of expensive shops and designers labels. Who buys them?

In our pursuit to find inexpensive food we happened across a Chinese equivalent of MacDonalds. The food was all displayed on boards at the back all numbered. We ventured to the front of the queue only for the serving girl to pull out an English style menu for us to order. The food came in double fast time and proved to be healthy and nutritious. The only blemish on this experience was the huge row that broke out between two women sat in the restaurant who started having a slanging match that looked like it would head to blows. We departed stage left as all eyes were turned on them.
After the meal we headed back to the hotel for an early night.

Saturday 27th June
Today we planned to get up for breakfast as it was included in the price but alas ended up sleeping too long. We ended up going to Starbucks in Liberation Square and ate something sweet with a latte. This was like all other branches of this franchise inside but the huge space was totally deserted. Led to us wondering whether these are being positioned for the future as there was no way it could be making a profit. Money needed to be paid for the cruise so we tried to find the office we had been taken to the previous day. This again was difficult as we had been led there by Jimmy. Eventually found it and asked to pay the remainder of the money and they said they would ring Jimmy. He promptly arrived and tried to persuade us to join some of those tours from the boat. We'd already talked about this and decided to do just one: the little 3 gorges. Jimmy was'nt too happy about this and said we could change our minds later on when we'd thought about it some more.

A leisurely Subway sandwich was had for lunch. Again the chain was occupied by many people from the west. It was difficult not to eavesdrop on a conversation between some neigbbouring diners: 2 Australian women, who ran a restaurant business here in Chongqing were chatting with some Americans. The older of the 2 Austalians did most of the talking explaining how she enjoyed the city and had been unable to cope back in Oz! Linda overheard the American couple saying they were taking the cruise down the Yangtze. On the way out she said ' May see you later ' I didnt think this would be the case as we had taken the cheap option. I said this to Linda and she agreed that it was unlikely.

From the restaurant we decided to search out the 'Three Gorges Museum,'one of the attractions recommended by Jimmy. (The other was an ancient town a bit further afield). The bus we had been told to take was the 261 but after one had passed us we went in search of the bus stop. Not one in sight. We were looking helplessly at the map when an old but sprightly gentleman asked if we needed help. On explaining our situation he simply said ' follow me' and proceeded to take us to the museum. This was quite remarkable as it involved a trip on the MRT and a lengthy walk in which we were trying to match his pace. On arrival at the museum we thanked him profusely and shook his hand. He said goodbye and left. We wondered if that would ever happen in England..... have to say we'd both wondered if he'd prove to be a tout..but this clearly wasn't the case... how amazing.
The museum was an incredible modern building half glass and half limestone built around an atrium with exhibition floors running off this central area. It was truly inspiring. We looked around the exhibits one of which explained the Three Gorges. Although there was some English explanation at the start of the galleries most of the displays had none which made it difficult. It was well designed though with some fantastic statue sculptors of people like Mao and Sun Yat Sen. After the museum we went across the square to look at a fantastic building which looked like a Chinese version of the Albert Hall and turned out to be the People's Hall. The bizarre thing about this was it had huge plastic soft drinks bottles outside advertising something like Sprite. We paid to go in and found them setting up some sort of concert obviously sponsored by the drinks company. China has these strange contradictions going on as capitalism takes hold.
We returned to the hotel via the MRT and had a good meal in the restaurant opposite our hotel. We were welcomed into the place by a row of attractive girls who were really lovely. We'd got caught in a bit of a rainstorm, so it was good to dry out. The staff were extremely attentive: each time we took a sip of water they would top up the glass!(this did get a bit wearing actually and was often the case). The rucksacks had been left behind at reception so we picked them up and headed down to the office where we had done the deal with Jimmy. I was still feeling a little sceptical about the tickets being there on time in fact Linda bet me he would and lo and behold but our friend appeared dead on time. He helped us on board and showed us our accommodation for the next 3 days. At a cursory glance it seemed ok. Own bathroom, large window, twin beds. After we had said our goodbyes to Jimmy we heard a knock on the door. The Chinese woman standing there was pretty, aged about 25, and introduced herself as Helen, our English speaking guide for the duration of the trip. She explained what would be happening and issued us with our ticket to the top deck which was an additional 50Y each. As soon as she left the cabin a waiter came rushing in and ushered us down the corridor. At first we were puzzled but soon realised that he was offereing us an upgrade: the room he showed us was quite a bit bigger, with an enormous TV, but otherwise the facilities seemed the same. When we declined his invitation to move he dropped his price, but we still chose to stay put. Back in our cabin he proceeded to show us the light switches etc which we'd already found and then asked for a tip. He was very unhappy when we refused. After this we decided to explore and went up to the sun deck. As we began to leave the room a second waiter barged past us, locking the door behind him! He also proceeded to show us light switches etc before we showed him the door. This was actually very disturbing and left us feeling very unsettled when we should have been relaxing into our 'cruise@. By now it was dark and tup on deck he lights of the city were quite special. Opposite us there was an outside screen positioned on the side of the Arts building. It was showing scenes from under the ocean and took us back to our diving experience. We were quite surprised and pleasantly so to spot the Americans we had met in Subway. Sam and Pat were part of a trip for art teachers interested in ceramics and we got quite friendly with them during the 'cruise'. We discussed our first impressions of the boat: as seasoned travellers we hadn't expected great things, but some of their group were shocked by the dismal state of the boat... stained carpets and smoky walls dominated the open areas and the bathrooms were pretty disgusting: the pipes from the sink were loose, so whenever you used the sink it leaked. Even when water landed in the channel below this was absolutely filthy! Sam and Pat, who were a bit older than us seemed to be coping ok and we took an immediate shine to them. After some time the boat began to pull away from the quay and we were on our way down the Yangtze! We had a quick look in the bar/lounge area, where karaoke had already started. Here there was a good sized dance floor, but we decided to leave this for another night and headed to bed for and early night.


Sunday 28th June
Sleeping on the boat proved to be a strange experience. It vibrated and throbbed very loudly. Cups were rattling on the bedside table but more disturbing was the noise coming from a panel on the ceiling near the door. I took off the panel and stuffed some toilet paper in there to try and dull the sound. Success at least for a short while. At least the room had little lights by the bed so we could read. We reversed our position in the bed to compensate for the slope and soon dropped off.
Dawn broke and we got our first look at this huge river. It was a swirling mass of milk chocolate coulored water. Not the sort you would ever want to swim in. The river was very wide and we were constantly passed by boats fully loaded with all sorts of cargo ranging from coal to new vans.
The first stop was to visit a place called Ghost City. We'd booked onto this with Helen... although we think it cost more than Jimmy had quoted!! This was a series of temples set high up on a hill. Our guide Helen introduced us to another Chinese woman called Carla who had better English. She was living in Texas and was over with her family visiting her parents who were from Shanghai. We left the boat with them and headed up many steps on the bank of the river. This was to be the pattern all the way along as much of the basin had been flooded with the construction of the dam. Whole cities had been moved uphill..quite amazing. At the top of the steps we were greeted by the ubiquitous hawkers who always assumed we wanted beer first and water second. The day was very hot and it wasnt long before I was ringing wet with sweat.
We boarded some little electric cars to take us to the start of the temple ( an extra 10Y ) The initial impression of the entrance to the ghost city was very spooky with some impressive scary gates adorned by carved demons. We walked through a small street in which there were some derelict buildings and stalls selling halloween type masks. We then ascended lots of steps. At the top of the steps we entered ghost street: a wide pedestrian area with grotesque bronze statues on each side. At the far end of the street there was a huge open mouth of a demon which signified the entry into hell. We then approached the walls of the temple where we paid another 10Y to go into what could only be described as a chamber of horrors. This involved walking through semi-lit corridors filled with all sorts of scenes of horror. These were depicted by Papier Mache figures some of them automated. The type of scenes were of people being dismembered in all sorts of ways. It was all very kitsch. took me back to my childhood at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. This was further confirmed when we payed an extra 5Y to carry on down a tunnel only to be confronted by a very makeshift ghost train. The little trolley we sat on took us in a 100 metre circle where we were brushed by various dusty items and dimly lit figures. By this time we had got quite hysterical with laughter. The tunnels continued for what seemed like miles and we made many jokes about being stuck in hell...actually we were almost on our own in the tunnels and were beginning to wonder if we'd ever catch up with the rest of the group!! When we finally got out of 'hell' noboddy else was in sight! We decided they must have continued up the hlll to another temple and proceeded to look for a way up. Nothing was obvious but Brent spotted some steps which we followes. They were in disrepair, but lead in the right direction and brought us out at a temple full of Buddhas, reminiscent of the 100000 Buddhas in Hong Kong! After a look around we began to get anxious: we hadn't seen any other members of our group and didn't want to imiss the boat... finding our way down was a challenge but we eventually got onto the main drag down and in the end made it back in plenty of time. When Carla came on board she asked where we got to and we reckoned that they'd been to one of the other temples at the top of the hilll via a cable car.

As the day wore on we got chatting to the US group and to 2 German lads: Philip is a lawyer specialising in Mariner affairs. He's been living in Shanghai for 2 years and is quite charming and very bright. He loves the chaos of China. Back in January he met the other lad, who is much more typically German and clearly unhappy with the 'cruise'. Philip made it clear that most of the time the two of them don't get on well. Have to say, although charmed by Philip I could completely understand how the other lad felt! The rest of the day passed uneventfully and in the evening we reached our next port of call. Helen hadn't recommended this to us, so we just got off for a walk up to the gate of the temple passing rows of hawkers selling a wide range of antiques mixed with trashy items. Back on the boat we had a quite evening: we'd planned to join the americans on the karaoke ( they'd had a fun time the previous night and we'd regretted not staying up. However after dinner when we headed for the bar the Americans had not appeared. We listened to the karaoke for a while but soon realised we couldn't cope with some of the 'artistes' so retired to our room, where we put out music on the laptop and updated some of this blog.

Monday 29th June
This morning there was an early trip out to visit a nearby town ( we think). We'd told Helen that we needed a lie in, so she didn't wake us up. however we had a very unsettled night as at 3.30 am the ship sounded it's horn several times, very loudly, then at 7am a cleaner came rapping at the door wanting to 'clean' the room. After that the phone rang taround 8.30oo...all very annoying. So much for a lie in! The call was from Helen or Carla suggesting that we get on deck early to see the first of the gorges. Around 9am we were up on deck enjoying the views of the gorges. It was pretty grey and rainy, but the views were still quite impressive. After lunch we left with other passengers for our visit to the little gorges. We met up with Sam and Pat who said that the previous evening's temple visit hadnt been very interesting. We realised that Helen had given us some good advice – they'd missed Ghost city, which had been quite interesting. Anyway we all headed onto smaller ferries, which took us on a commentated trip down the little gorges: these were quite a bit narrower than those we'd seen from the big boat. We couldn't believe the commentary: a young woman began to speak through a microphone as soon as we were aboard, and honestly didn't stop for breath for the whole trip, which must have lasted a couple of hours. When we reached a narrower part of the river we transferred to smaller vessels: these were wooden rafts with bamboo curved to provide a covered roof ( see pictures). They had small motors on the back, which allowed the guide to deliver his commentary from the front. Dressed in the traditional hat his delivery included some lovely singing and story telling. Before reboarding the ferry several visitors had their photos taken in the hat and a straw cloak.

This was our last night on board and I have to say we couldn't wait to leave the boat! We decided to enjoy the evening with the other English speakers and took our card game ( Quidldler) down to the bar, where some of them were already playing a drinking game of cards. We were pleasantly surprised when the entertainment began and it wasn't karaoke! Instead a compere set up musical chairs and a dice game, which the chinese were delighted with. Have to say we couldn't believe how easily pleased they were – there was much raucous laughter and it was a pleasure to see folk enjoying simple fun. Then some music came on and it was Western! We were in the midst of our game, but some of the younger Americans got up to dance. Much clapping followed and a bit of a dance contest ensued. Brent and I decided we'd have a dance too, but after we came back from the loo everyone disappeared along with the music!!! all very weird and disappointing. Oh well at least we only had one night left before leaving the ship!!

Tuesday 30th June
We got up quite early to do our packing, having decided against this morning's boat trip, which left at 6am. We'd been grateful to helen, who'd organised the next stage of our trip from the boat: we would join the visit to the 3 gorges dam ( the largest in the world and very controvertial) and then get the bus into Yishang, where we would transfer to another bus to Wuhan, where Helen had booked us into a hotel...again reasonable priced. The details of all of this seemed very complicated with us having to find a Mr Li and a Mr Hu in order to collect tickets.... We were getting used to this now though.

Everyone seemed booked on the dam trip but we were in with Carla and her family, whilst the other English speakers were all together. The dam was interesting and a real leffort has been made to beautify the surroundings, with viewpoints and gardens with sculptures. There were 3 stops with short bus journeys in between and by the end of the visit I think we were both shattered... I know I was (Lin). We spotted Sam and Pat and managed to exchange email details before heading off on the journey to Wuhan. This all went very smoothly...thanks to Helen, although the bus journey to wuhan was bizarre: before we left there was a lot of shouting going on and we realised that the bus had been overbooked. It took an age to get this sorted and everyone applauded when we finally left. We couldn't believe it when 5 minutes later we stopped for at least 10 minutes in a bizarre cafe, where the toiilet doesn't bear describing! Have to say by now I'd lost the will to live! The seats were incredible close together and lots of people were coughing and spluttering. What with that and the state of the public toiltes I'd had enough! When we finally got to Wuhan we couldn't believe our luck. As everyone got off the bus a lady held up a list with our names on... turned out we were right outside our hotel...thank god! Philip said : Are you staying here?' in a very surprised voice. The hotel did look very smart and I replied that I thought not as ours was a 2 star place. In fact the smart exterior hid a second building out the back, where the 2 star accommodation was found. Once again this entailed going through a labyrinthe of corridors and a conference hall, but we managed ok. The room itself was fine...clean and with a clean bathroom. That evening we ventured out and were very surprised by Wuhan: just around the corner on a parallel road there was a stream of bars and discos and a bit further along an amazing riverside area, with vast walkways and open areas. On the way into the town we'd seen huge groups of people exercising and this would be another area for that. We stopped at a bar on the way back where the manager had good English. We enjoyed a lager and some popcorn and he invited us to try the local tea, which was quite nice. A nice welcome to Wuhan.