This time round I had a top bunk - I was hoping that I wouldn't get disturbed by all the early risers. Just about the entire entourage had noodles for dinner and then we just mulled round until lights went out.

The train was due in at 11am originally, so with the late start we all figured that we wouldn't get in until 12ish. I was hoping to sleep until around the 10 o'clock mark, but I only managed until about 9ish.

As we sat there, pondering the outside views, the train lady came round to tell us that this stop was ours - it was only 10am. We'd left an hour late and still managed to arrive an hour early - go figure?

It was then time for a private transfer to Wu Chan city. After a stop at the supermarket, we (okay - everyone else) had an early dinner.

Afterwards, we drove to the boat where we got settled in for the upcoming days. The Communist Party had commandeered the boat that we were originally supposed to use so the boat company had moved us to a bigger and better one - none of us were going to complain about that.

The boat wasn't quite the QEII, but it was still very nice, with plenty of space in the cabins - no bunks this time, unlike the Galapagos.

Although we had gotten on the boat that evening, it wasn't due to leave until early the next morning. They had wake up music at 7ish and then breakfast was at 7.30am. We'd turned off our speakers the previous night - elevator music first thing in the morning wasn't really something that I coped with very well.

Our first stop along the Yangtze (which is the third largest in the World, behind the Nile and the Amazon - all three of which I have now conquered, probably not in the same way as Livingstone or Cleopatra conquered them, but all the same….) was the Three Gorges Dam Project.

This was a huge Dam and on completion will provide enough power to supply 2% of the Chinese population - about 20 million people. It was also built to stop the disastrous flooding issues that China has - in 1998 they had a huge flood in which hundreds of people died.

The dam was supposed to be complete in 2009 but work is still being done and the expected finish date is 2017. The first stage was finished in 2003 but by 2017, the water will have risen another 175m. On completion more than 2 million people would have lost their homes underwater and many their livelihood.

We were unable to actually go inside the dam and could only go to a couple of view points of the dam. The weather was still pretty miserable and combined with the smog, we couldn't even see the other end of the dam (which is 2km long).

Upon returning to the ship it was time for lunch and then time to settle down and get ready to go through the Lock System, that would carry us up behind the dam. There were five locks and it took about 40mins to go through each lock and we'd be raised 115m.

It was fascinating to watch the first lock. They lined up five ships (two wide and three/two long). The gap was minimal between the two ships and the sides of the lock. The doors of the lock opened, the ships moved in, the doors closed and then the water was let into the lock and we rose until we 40 metres higher than we were previously. The next lot of doors opened and the process was repeated.

Later in the afternoon we were given a lecture on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) by the ship's doctor. It was very interesting and the doctor had some time after the lecture t discuss ailments. I took this opportunity to discuss my B12 deficiency with him. He had a feel of my pulse, said something about my kidneys and then told me I should have some acupuncture. I made an appointment for later in the evening.

After dinner, the staff put on an entertainment evening for us - singing dancing etc. It was quite good, but I'm not sure if I applied for a job on a boat as a waitress that I'd actually want to have to spend time singing and dancing too.

I left the show slightly early to go to my appointment with the doctor. He took my pulse, looked at my tongue and claimed it was definitely a kidney issue - that my yang and chi were out.

Then the fun part came - I had to lie on the bed and practise my breathing - in through the nose, out from the mouth - breathing deep, with the outward breaths. Apparently I'm not very good at breathing and I can't relax if I don't learn to breathe properly.

Once the breathing had been sorted, I was stabbed (ok, it wasn't quite stabbing, but still..) with the acupuncture needles - one each on my forearms just below the elbow and one each on the outside part of my shins. Not a pleasant sensation at all, to the point the one in my right arm was just painful, but he adjusted it and I was then covered with a muslin cloth (not sure what this was in aid of).

I continued to practise my breathing and the doctor would randomly push down on the needles (which were about 2.5-3 inches inside my body parts) and tell me to feel the chi flowing through my limbs. If you can classify discomfort with chi, then I guess I felt it!!

This process lasted for about 30 minutes.

Next on the cards, was the spiel about the pills I should take - five a time, twice a day. That was okay, but the price was what really mattered - three months was going to be 600 Yuan (about 60 pounds, or 140 NZD). I think I was still a bit shell shocked from the whole experience and didn't realise what it was, that I was actually agreeing too.

The doctor also said I needed to come back for one more session of acupuncture - oh joy.

I left and went back to the others, who progressed to laugh at me for quite some time about being ripped off.

I decided the next morning that I was going to take the pills back to the doctor and get maybe a month's worth instead - that way if it was a rip off, I was only get duped out of 20 quid and not 60.

That morning, we hopped onto a ferry that had been anchored to our ship and we sailed up a tributary of the Yangtzee to go to the three "little" gorges. We changed from the ferry onto peapod boats. These were smallish boats that could hold maybe 16 people and were rowed by four people and a fifth to do the steering.

The gorges were beautiful, a lot more of what I expected the Yangtzee to be like, but I guess being the third largest river in the world, nothing was ever going to be small and cutesy.

There were so many boats and the rowers seemed to enjoy having races of sorts, with the other boats.

Yet again, the weather was living up to it's usual rainy self so we'd all armed ourselves with bright yellow 20 Yuan (2 quid) plastic raincoats.

The boat was equipped with a canvas to stop us from getting soaked, unfortunately it hindered our views of the lovely gorge.

On the way back our guide, Kitty, sung some songs for us. It was traditional for the girl to catch the boy by singing various songs - my luck was going to be out with the Chinese boys, since my voice wasn't quite equipped with angel like vocals.
Also, for the week prior to the wedding, the girl was supposed to spend the morning crying and the evening crying, whilst singing about giving up her freedom.

Eventually we returned to our ship for a spot of lunch.

There were no activities scheduled for the afternoon, but I did have the second of my acupuncture sessions.

This wasn't much better than the first, but I put up a brave face and managed to get through it. I returned my excess pills to the doctor and walked away with a final bill of 760 yuan (76 quid or around 170 NZD). At least this way if it didn't work it wouldn't have cost me a fortune (unlike one of the others, who's bill was in the region of 1700 yuan).

The evening was spent supping beer and watching films on tv.

In the morning, we left the ship at Fengdu and got a private transfer to Quinching (need to check spelling as actually think I've just completely made up the name of the town). This took in the region of three hours.

Once again, it was train time, so after a bout of sitting in the train station, we hopped on board a fairly classy looking train for our short trip to Chengdu - Panda Country!!!