We arose early for a 7am bus to Chongqing to board our 3 Gorge boat trip. The early start was rather annoying as the boat didn't leave Chongqing, a five hour bus away, until 9 at night but we were told the early start was in case of the bus breaking down on the way. That explanation rather lost it's credibility when we were told that we could pay a fee to get a bus later in the day instead. That bus obviously never breaks down then!

5 hours later we arrived in Chongqing with instructions that 'John' would meet us at the bus station. We were bizarrely dropped off in a lockup garage and told that was the last stop. Thankfully our worries were disspelled when a girl appeared and proclaimed she had been sent 'from John'. She led us on a walk she assured us would only be '10 minutes' and about 15 minutes later we arrived at a hotel. She hustled us into the lift and I was briefly worried we were about to be hijacked for 'other services' but once up on the 19th floor she led us to a door that claimed to contain a whole hostel inside one apartment. Inside was the smallest hostel we'd ever seen but it had a great view and we didn't mind when we were told to wait for the mythical 'John' as he was out on other business. While we waited for John we asked the girl to make us some noodles. We were told they would be '10 minutes', 5 minutes later they appeared and we ate them on the balcony, looking down at the Yangtze and a rather grimy city shrouded in mist.

'John' duly arrived in about an hour and was, as we'd guessed, a Chinese chap who'd adopted the western name. He spoke good English and managed to persuade us to upgrade from thrid class to second class as the difference was apparently pretty marked. We'd also be sharing the room with other young backpackers rather than Chinese people who would probably be older if we upgraded, something we decided would probably be more fun.

To pass the afternoon hours we headed to central Chongqing. The overall impression I had was of a pretty dirty, overcrowded city. The infrastructure seemed to be swamped by too many people. While there I purchased two more books for the occasion ('Kim' by Kipling and 'Rob Roy' by Scott for anyone interested) and withdrew money for the boat before heading to an internet cafe for some last e-mails. We grabbed some snacks to finish and headed back to the apartment for the appointed meeting time. We met an Irish couple and a Swedish couple (we would be rooming with the Swedish couple) and headed for the vessel. The girl leading us assured us the walk was only '10 minutes' and about 15-20 minutes later we arrived at the ship office.

We boarded the boat via a fantastically unnecessary diagonal lift and discovered our abode for the next three days would be a small set of four bunk-beds in a room that had a distinct odour of urine. The toilet was a wonderfully compact arrangement of a squat toilet directly underneath the shower. Washing was going to be a rather less relaxing experience than usual unless we wanted to risk slipping into the toilet!

Dave and I immediately decided to spend as little time in the room as possible and set off to explore the boat. We quickly found that 3rd class was far worse and placed in the bowels of the boat (thanks be to 'John'!) and that the best position on the boat was the viewing deck attached to the bar. We paid the 60 Yuan fee to have access to the bar for the three days (with unlimited free green tea, woohoo!) and settled into a position on the deck. We gorged on free tea and watched Chongqing's spectacular nightly show of strobe lights from all the skyscrapers and switched to beers as the boat set off. I went down at half 9 to retrieve our snacks and found that the Swedes were already in bed and complaining of being bored. Dave and I on the other hand were kicked out of the bar when it closed at half 10.