After a week of having everything done for us, being told where to go, what time to be there and which pair of pants to wear, life on the second week of the tour was a bit more of a reality check. No longer entitled to the security blanket of a national guide (only groups of 6+ get that apparently), a local guide would instead meet us in every new place we stopped (supposedly), and the rest of it we were to piece together ourselves. What could possibly go wrong...

A quick flight to Chongqing to start a 3 night cruise on the Yangtze River was negotiated without a hitch, but when the local guide met us in arrivals, he had some bad news. The waters were too shallow for our cruise ship to venture into so we had a 3.5hr bus ride ahead of us to meet it further up the river in Fuzou. Why we couldn't have flown there instead is a mystery to me as they must have known for weeks that the waters were shallow. But now we had a choice. Drive around Chongqing a bit, grab a free lunch and get the 6pm bus - or head straight to the 4.30pm bus and miss out on free food. Half-starved though I was, the general consensus was to head straight for the bus and get the long drive over with. We made it just in time (or so we thought), threw our bags on the coach and and sent our local guide on his merry way - we had it all under control. 2hrs later we'd gone precisely nowhere...

As the minutes ticked away, boredom and then frustration set in. Other buses came and went but we were stuck. Aside from a boat "liaison", Ken (who spoke good English but sadly had no clue what was going on), there was no one to tell us what was happening, when we'd be leaving or even if there was shop nearby to get some food!

It seems, from what little info we could scrape together, we were lumbered with sharing a bus with a large group of Germans who were half an hour late. And when they finally did show up, their luggage wasn't with them - it was "on its way". And when that finally turned up 2hrs later, they couldnt even fit it all on the bus! Not the proudest moment for German efficiency...

Eventually underway, the bus driver, determined to make up for lost time, tore along the dark coastal roads. Until suddenly we stopped. A huge construction truck was blocking the road the driver was nowhere to be seen. Half an hr later he did show up, reluctantly moved his truck and we were finally able to get to the boat. Getting off, some jobsworth attempted to tell us we weren't allowed to take our bags from the hold, but my glare was enough to silence his protests and I grabbed our luggage so we could get on the boat.

On board it was like entering a different world...marble floored reception, spiral staircases, huge chandeliers...and best of all, air conditioning! Another of our "liaisons", Yoyo, showed us our rooms - which were very nice - and tried to give us the hard sell on paying for an upgrade. Naturally we declined, and she gave us the upgrade anyway (which basically just moved us up a couple of decks)! We'd missed dinner so after a quick wander round the boat we went to our rooms for a slap up supper of pot noodle and beer before heading to bed.

At 6.30am we were woken up the morning alarm call for breakfast! We later asked if we could turn this off but unfortunately it was a mandatory 1hr of announcements and music that could only be drowned out by earplugs! Wandering down to breakfast half-asleep we met our table-mates for the cruise - 4 couples, 1 Aussie, 1 Indian, 1 English, 1 Austrian.

The next couple of days were very lazy and relaxing, somewhat blending into each other. Breakfast and lunch were buffets and not particularly special - in fact we ignored the morning calls for brekkie after day 1). Dinner was supposed to be a bit more special but the Captains Welcome Banquet was actually pretty awful, and the complimentary thimble of s***ty Chinese wine that came with it was a joke! After dinner entertainment consisted of some skits put on by the crew and some party games with prizes - pass-the-parcel, musical chairs and a raffle ...I kid you not! The games were quite entertaining as Hannah took part in musical chairs and Kate won a prize in the raffle (a special dinner dish that really was anything but!). As soon as they were over though, the place emptied within seconds and the only people left drinking were us westerners, surprise surprise! In between eating and drinking we went on a couple of excursions and chilled on deck, admiring the awesome scenery of The Three Gorges.

Leaving the luxury of the boat behind us we somehow managed to find our local guide (despite no one on the boat knowing we had one or where we were supposed to meet them!) in Yichang. After a quick tour of the town - which none of us had any interest in - and the obligatory attempt to flog us some silk at a local shop, we jumped on a train to Nanjing. There we met another guide Jimmy and drove to our hotel.

Nanjing is the old capital of China and a fairly integral part of its history, and the visit to the Confucius temple area and the Nanjing Massacre Musuem (where a local was at pains to tell me the Japs werent people but in fact, devils!) was fairly interesting. The main thing I remember though is Jimmy and his incessant ramblings. A fountain of information, some useful but mostly useless, he never tired of telling us how awesome and funny he was, despite being neither! Ditching him for he evening, we went into town to eat Mexican and get pissed on strong cocktails!

From Nanjing to Suzhou and yet another tour guide. Jackie was far more affable than Jimmy but during the boat ride along the canals (Suzhou has been nicknamed the Venice of the East) we simply ignored him and stared out the windows, too tired to even adopt our newly perfected nodding dog routine ("uh huh"..."oh, really!?"..."ah, ok"). Left to our own devices in the evening, we ventured down to the trendy canal side district, full of cafes, bars and restaurants. A quaint area with a nice chilled out vibe, it was hard to see why it wasnt included it on the itinerary....

And finally, we were off to Shanghai where it was absolutely pissing down with rain! Fittingly our final local guide was a complete drip and we ignored his mutterings all the way to our hotel. Once he'd left, we got a cab into the city. Sadly, the rain was unrelenting, so after lunch and a token visit to a museum, we did the only sensible thing left...found the nearest happy hour and got drunk!

Weather on day 2 in Shanghai (and the final official day of the tour) was little better. After lunch we spent a couple of hours on city bus tours as this at least kept us dry, and then, inevitably, ended up enjoying more happy hour drinks. After dinner, we said our goodbyes to Hannah and crossed our fingers the weather would pick up for the rest of out time in Shanghai...