And the journey continues...... I've actually left Yichang now but I thought I'd update my regular readers on what I've been up to.

First of all, the group I'm travelling with are:

David & Junior (Leicester) and I knew David already from Leicester - still in shock from when I met him in the street in Beijing. He is such a nice guy. They are a gay couple and Junior makes us howl with laughter with his comments during the endless journeys.

Helen & Scott (Leeds) - friends of David and Juniors and also on honeymoon (nice of them to share it with us but they must be mad!). Thoroughly nice couple

Rachel (Aberdeen) - I'm really close to Rachel and we have regular late night chats over a beer. Will be visiting her in Glasgow at some point as she's moving there soon.

Bobby and Anne- Marie (Ireland) - lovely couple. Bobby also makes us laugh a lot with his crazy stories and anne-marie is lovely

Marissa and Sharon (Canada) - just friends and absolutely great to be around. Will be hooking up with them in Hong Kong when everyone else leaves.

Ruth (Ireland) - lovely Irish girl who works in London.

Leo (France) - french guy - he is so funny and makes us laugh so much with his dry and warped sense of humour. He's also a thoroughly nice guy.

Joe (Norway) - another great guy - we talk a lot and I know all about Norway now and we compare and laugh about our fave British TV shows (Little Britain etc.)

Michael (China group leader) - lovely guy, long suffering having to deal with us, getting married next month and a fab guide.

We left Xian on day 10 of the tour and headed to Yichang. This of course meant another long train journey (15 hours). It was worse than the others because (a) The journey started in the morning rather than the evening (a day and evening train journey), (b) the train was disgustingly dirty (and don't ask about the condition of the squat toilets!!), (c) we were going through mountains for most of the journey (so it was in and out of tunnels the whole time so we saw very little and it was very noisy). (d) quite a few of the group were ill. We eventually arrived in Yichang at about midnight and went straight to our hotel to sleep as we were catching a Yangtse boat at 7am the next morning.

We got up at 6am, generally felt like s***e, but as always we were determined to make the best of it. We headed by bus to a port on the Yangtse river to catch our boat. The boat was larger than I expected and was full to the brim with Chinese tourists. This was going to be our home for the next 2 nights. We were allocated cabins on a two share basis and I shared with our tour leader Michael. We had first class cabins but you wouldn't know if you saw them. I think that the difference between first and normal class in that in first there is 2 beds in a relatively small cabin but in normal class there is 6 beds in the same space. The little bathrooms were smelly and horrible but at least they had western style toilets. Oh yes, we also had adjoining balconys so we spent quite a lot of time sitting, drinking beer, having a laugh and enjoying the gorgeous view as we cruised gently down the river. I can't describe how beautiful the Three Gorges were (acually I think breathtaking is more the word). I've taken loads of pics so will upload as soon as possible so you get the idea.

We stopped off at the Three Gorges damn project will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. It spans nearly a mile across and when fully operational in 2009 supply 20% of China's electricity with it's 29 turbines (amazing). It's a breathtaking sight and I have seen it on TV loads so to see it in close proximity was brilliant. We also saw an outdoor show which told the story of the damn (with the damn as a backdrop). The show was amazing and had about 600 performers - we thoroughly enjoyed it. Once again, pics to follow.

The following day, we stopped off and took another boat to some smaller rivers off the Yangtse. We then got into traditional chinese boats (complete with about 5 Chinese oarsmen) who rowed us upstream and downstream showing us yet more beautiful scenery that we would not be able to see from a large boat. The oarsmen work so hard and I felt sorry for them as they get paid peanuts (like most people in China). We then returned to the boat at the end of the day and had a big party in David and Junior's cabin and got absolutely pissed (we exhausted all stocks of beer on the boat).

None of us were looking forward to the next part of the trip. We had to disembark from the boat at 7am at another port further down the river. We then caught a minibus that took us to another train station which was 7 hours drive away (yes 7 hours). The journey was awful, cramped and uncomfortable. To make it worse, about 7 of the 14 group members were ill - chest infections, colds, severe stomach bugs etc. It seemed truly endless! The next instalment of this particular journey was another 15 hour overnight train journey which was followed by a 2 hour public coach ride to the place where we were staying in the city of Yangshuo. Hardly any of us managed to sleep on the train. The group members who were ill had a very unpleasant trip and the ones that were not didn't do much better.

The totally journey time for us from Yichang to Yangshou was over24 hours non stop travelling. We arrived at our hotel this morning at about 8.30am to be told that the rooms would not be ready until midday as people in our rooms were checking out late. We were not happy given that we hadn't been able to shower or freshen up properly for the 2 days on the boat (because the bathrooms were disgusting) or the bus to the train station or the overnight train. On arrival we were smelly, pretty down and extremely pissed off. Michael took us for breakfast (an English breakfast too - first time we had come across that!) which cheered us up a bit and then we walked around until our rooms were ready. I've now been to my room, freshened up, taken a long hot shower and feel human again. The rooms are lovely and clean and the location of the place is great. Yangshou - to be continued later.

The travelling has been hard work but the group has really bonded well. All of our inhibitions went out of the window a long time ago. There is little privacy, we hardly get the chance to eat properly cus we're always on the move (my belt has gone in two notches!). I've been sharing rooms with different people (Michael (China) , Joe (Norway), Leo (France) and despite initial reservations it's been great to get to know people from different countries in that way.