We were afforded a relative lie-in for the third morning of the trip when the loudspeaker only started at 7. The wake up this time was for the entry to the second gorge. Sadly it was even less impressive than the first and the droning girl on the loudhailer continued to grate. Thankfully, she’d talked herself out within 20 minutes and we were left in peace, as soon as she finished the crowd dispersed. We alternated between the deck and free tea in the bar as the weather dictated and wiled away the time reading, writing and watching the scenery go by. It was in one dry spell outside that we chatted to Sovi again. Another revelation came out, far from living in China, Sovi’s parents lived in the same block as him in Montreal and always had. Sovi’s Dad actually spoke 7 languages, using French at home in Canada, it just so happened that none of them were English. Our conclusions had again proved awry.

The third gorge was equally disappointing, the raised waters robbing it of its natural splendour. We headed down to pack our bags and say goodbye to our lovely cabin. We reckoned by the end of the three days the hours the Swedes had spent outside the room could still be counted on one hand, and the sad thing was we were pretty sure it wasn’t for amorous reasons. We wondered how long they’d last in China before bailing out and heading on home.

Sadly in the melee of disembarkation we missed out on saying goodbye to Sovi, getting off the boat turned into a desperate surge for the doors and we were bundled onto a bus on our way to see the dam itself before we knew it.

The dam tour was again conducted entirely in Mandarin and without Sovi and his parents we were pitched back into a world of ignorance. We were given 3 views of the dam and taken past the enormous set of locks which keep the flow of ships long the river (70% of China’s shipping travels along the Yangtze) and are an incredible feat of engineering on their own. The dam itself is truly gigantic and a testament to the continued lust for huge infrastructure projects that the Chinese Government has. There are serious questions over the dam, however. Before the water was allowed to fill there were 120 major cracks found in the concrete. The Chinese Government insisted this was perfectly normal and no danger at all. Their credibility was called into question, however, when it was revealed that a dam had burst in a more remote area in the 1970’s killing thousands and the Government had chosen to cover the whole thing up. If the giant three gorges dam broke then the 280,000 residents of Yichang would be submerged within an hour.

After having a close look at the dam Dave and I headed on to Yichang, deciding we’d be really unlucky for it to break on the one night we were staying there. We checked into a hotel (not the one we’d meant to but a mix up with the taxi driver left us by the wrong bus station) and found the room was plush, with a nice ensuite and satellite TV. We’d decided to treat ourselves on our last night together.

We ventured out and headed to the area described as ‘lively’ by the Lonely Planet. We stopped halfway at a nice looking restaurant and successfully ordered an absolute feast for ourselves. After prizing our stuffed frames out of the seats and moving on, however, we found once again that the ‘lively’ area wasn’t quite as advertised. We enjoyed a couple of quiet drinks and had a long chat before retiring to the room for our last night together. The morrow was to mark the end of our shared experience.