The entire boat rose once again at 6, this time for a trip round ‘White King Town’. The town was built when an old Emperor saw ‘white smoke’ rising from a pond and declared it a good omen for his reign. He immediately built a small palace on the site. Within the historical building there were also some interesting burial stones, excavated before the rising waters could consume them, and a selection of ‘hanging coffins’ within which the local people were placed then hung out from cliffs for nature to claim them back. The Museum was slightly more interesting as the Chinese lad kept updating us on what had been said, without him we would’ve been completely dumbfounded by the whole thing. After a while we moved away from the group and got the chance to ask why the Chinese guy had such good English. He looked back at us, incredibly confused, and said, ‘well……I’m Canadian’. Nice one Sherlock and Watson! The lad was called Sovi and this was only his second trip to China.

Back on the boat it was time to see the first gorge. Dave and I arrived on the viewing deck to find it packed and as we entered the cliff-lined waterway a guide with a megaphone started blaring into a megaphone in Mandarin. The sight was impressive, but the knowledge that the water had been 165 metres lower and the spectacle far more imposing, coupled with the cacophony surrounding us rather spoiled the experience. Maybe our Lijiang mate had been right, and we should have headed for the Tiger Leaping Gorge.

In the afternoon we arrived at the embarkation point of our trip to the ‘Little Three Gorges’, a natural, smaller version of the Gorges. We transferred to smaller craft for a close-up look. The trip was by far the highlight of the three gorge experience, though not as high as the major version, the proximity of the cliffs made it a far more interesting and impressive experience. We also had a very animated guide who, despite only speaking in Mandarin, entertained us throughout, including a session mocking Dave, who was forced to parade at the front of the boat in a faux-Ming dynasty ensemble.

As we headed back towards the main boat Dave and I pondered a new mystery. Sovi’s parents didn’t speak English. The only conclusion we could come to was that Sovi must have grown up with his Uncle who he’d mentioned had a Chinese restaurant in Montreal. Ah, conundrum solved.

After another brief passage on the main boat we disembarked with the promise of a free show. With an hour to spend beforehand we were invited to dinner with Sovi and his parents. After a search we found a ‘hotpot’ restaurant. In the Chinese sense ‘hotpot’ means stock is boiled in the middle of the table and everything you order, save for cold dishes and pickles, is placed into the stock and boiled in the centre, with everyone helping themselves to the contents. Sovi’s Father ordered up an absolute feast and we gorged ourselves on a huge variety of meats and Chinese vegetables from the pot with dumplings, pickles and dried meats on the side. Towards the end Sovi’s Dad was egging us on to ever increasing heights of gluttony, and we both agreed it was the best meal of the trip. The only slight sticking point coming when a small turtle arrived at the table. We felt obliged as guests to eat some but didn’t feel comfortable eating what we were pretty sure was an endangered species.

After all that food we were extremely late for the show, which turned out to be a bizarre mish-mash of the old and new. There was a mock-up of a traditional wedding involving audience participation (not us thank god!) and then a big dance with a shockingly cheesy cabaret singer at the forefront. We headed back to the boat and spent an hour having a quiet chat with Sovi, comparing notes on our experiences of the Chinese with a lad who found the people around us as alien as we did.