Before we could meet our cruise boat for our three night trip up the Yangzi River we had a day of travelling to get there. This involved a train journey of a couple of hours, then a wait for a night train. The first train we had hard seats shared with locals and gave us quite an insight into Chinese society as the majority of people were sitting in groups playing cards in a very excitably loud manner. There was also a family sitting opposite Paul and myself which seemed to be made up of a mother, her daughter, and the daughters son aged about 4. There was a male included but he was sitting away from them (wise perhaps). It was very interesting to watch the two ladies who seemed to take turns and sometimes fight over fussing the boy who was manhandled constantly, even in his sleep! Our guide explained to us later the recent phenomenon of the "little emperor" which seems to have come about since the introduction of the one-child policy. We certainly didn't come away having picked up any tips on how to raise our child! We were treated during the 4 hour journey to various sales pitches including a man who was rather handy with the 80's fad of the Rubik's snake. With a flick of the wrist he deftly turned the flexible plastic snake into various different snakes including what looked like an extendable phallus at one point but even this display didn't persuade us to buy one from him! Another was sharing his hype about a pocket ultra violet light pen which would identify any fake notes. Very entertaining.

We arrived at the train station at about 17:00 where we put our bags into storage and set out to await our night train which would be departing at 22:15. After a tasty dinner of the usual rice with various dishes, we had some time to ourselves. Lillian had suggested an internet café or a massage, so we decided to investigate the massage place. Lillian accompanied us for translations sake, then discovering that it was only 30yuan for a 40min foot massage decided to join us. Mine turned out to be great but Paul had chosen a full body massage which was performed by a small young lady wearing hot pants, laddered tights and what he himself referred to

as "stripper heels". He was perfectly safe in the room with the rest of us but the problem was that she wasn't a particularly good masseuse either, one of her techniques being to pummel him in the kidneys,. But of course being polite and British he put up with it, thanked and paid her, then complained to us about it!

The night train that night had us sharing comfortable four berth cabins and an extremely slow stop-start but uneventful journey that got us too our destination at 1600 the next day. We were met by a private bus which took us to a restaurant for dinner, then to the pier where we boarded our cruise boat.

It looked nice from the outside and checking in at the reception, mounted plaques promised that this was a four star boat. Our twin share cabins were spacious, ensuite, with large windows for a riverside view. It wasn't until we started looking a little closer that we realised just how run down and poorly cared for the place really was. It looked like it had never been properly cleaned as dust and crumbs lay everywhere and mould grew in the corners and everything was musty. If anything had ever broken, it had been left broken I.e. our shower curtain half hanging off. It was really strange as the prices and general impression still reflected a luxury vessel and nobody apart from us westerners seemed to notice.

Anyhow we had that evening to ourselves as the vessel wasn't setting off until the next morning and would be picking up more guests further upstream. When we did leave port at 10:00 the next day it wasn't long before we were going through our first ship lock. We all sat on deck to experience the slow process of entering the lock and rising up with the water to take us to the next level. Despite the constantly misty weather the scenery soon began to improve as we moved into rural mountainous areas.

After lunch the boat started approaching the Three Gorges Dam which is a hydroelectric project. Highly controversial, this project is still under the last stages of construction and has taken over Paraguays as the largest storage reservoir, providing at least 10% of Chinas power requirements. Due to be fully completed this year it is a truly mammoth sight. We had a tour for the afternoon showing us around the main lookout points where we were told lots of facts and figures to demonstrate the construction scale.

The dam has a total length of 2309.47m and has a crest height of 181m. Te reservoir has a total capacity of 39.3 billion cubic metres of water with a flood control of 22.5 billion cubic meters. The ship lock has a maximum water head of 113m and is broken up into 5 locks to avoid the need for massive over engineering on each lock gate. Finally the construction of the dam and the ship locks took a staggering 23 million cubic meters of concrete and they estimate that even in 100 years time it will still not be 100% set in the middle of the dam….

Once we were back on the boat we had a bit of a wait because we were taking on another 10 or so western tourists and about 60 Chinese tourists. They were boarded and settled in by our meal time at 6, then we were on the move to make our way up the 5 massive ship locks which would take about 4 hours. The process was interesting due to the shear scale of the locks which took five other boats, including ours and just as large, at a time. After standing out on deck for a while the engine fumes were starting to get a bit much so Katie went to spend the rest of the evening in our cabin and Paul whiled away the time observing the repeated filling and emptying and chatting with Sjofn. We were asleep by the time we were up and through and by the next morning we were into region of the famous 3 gorges.

The first of these the Xiling Gorge we observed from the sundeck, the beautifully remote area with steep mountain sides rising up from the river is extremely inaccessible, yet farmers live in the hills and come down to the riverside to wave down and hitch rides up and down the river when they need to trade their wares. It was very hard to see the tiny, and impossibly steep paths that intermittently wind their way from the top of the mountains to the river side. The river is however, considerably higher since the building of the hydroelectric dam, by over 60 metres in some areas. This has meant that many small towns and villages are now underwater and the previous inhabitants have been relocated to newly built (read ugly) towns higher up. Apparently some people are pleased as this has meant and improvement in their living conditions. However, the government covered only about 60% of the actual cost of relocation in most cases, which has left a lot of people struggling to afford properties, though of course they have no other choice apart from to move away to other areas and cities. It's all very controversial.

Our included activity for the afternoon was where we were transferred to a smaller boat for an hour up one of the Yangzi tributaries, then to an even smaller boat to see some remote narrow gorges named the Mini Three Gorges. They may have been remote but that didn't stop them teeming with tourists and the associated sellers! Apparently these tributaries were barely accessible before the dam was built as the water was usually only 1.0 - 1.5 metres deep. Now it's at least 60 metres deep, and much of the gorges original dramatically high and steep image is sadly lost. What we did get to see which was pretty special, was the entrance to two caves up on the sheer cliff side about 30 meters above us which looked completely inaccessible but were actually used as tombs by the local ancient people over 2000 years ago. Called Hanging Coffins because they used to hang them in the entrance way. We could actually see some coffin shaped remnants that had survived the years.

Back on the cruise boat we had a few hours to practice our Mah Jong playing before dinner, then we were told to prepare for the evenings entertainment. Being the last night on the boat, the staff would be performing a talent show and the guest would be invited to join in some "fun games" as well as put their voices to karaoke and show off any talents of their own. Needless to say Paul started looking for his closest life raft but was soon persuaded to stay with the promise that we would be allowed to just watch and have a beer. At eight pm sharp many guests, including ourselves gathered in the lounge to be entertained. The host did half his announcing in Mandarin and English and we were soon watching a fashion show by the staff where the ladies strutted their stuff dressed in various glamorous dresses and the men turned up the collars on their white work shirts and wore a long shiny black coat. (!?) This was followed by some reluctant dancing in local costumes by the waitresses, and some fairly impressive Chinese flute playing by one of the guides. By this point we were pretty relaxed and enjoying ourselves but then they started setting up for the internationally fun game of musical chairs. A couple of western tourists found themselves centre stage alongside some enthusiastic Chinese tourists and off they went. It was exactly as you would remember from those birthday parties when you were about six, except this time there were no crying sore losers. The Chinese absolutely LOVED it, they roared with laughter. It was really great to watch, especially the contrast with us westerners who were struggling not to look too uncomfortable and inhibited. Next came a game of guessing animal noises and before we knew it, it was time for the disco and dancing. The early nineties Euro dance hits came blasting out of the speakers, then they turned it up. Paul and I exchanged a glance, then sent further apologetic glances and the rest of our group before making a break for our cabin. It was unbelievably loud, and could be hear throughout the boat. We soon saw Sjofn following on behind us so we invited her for a game of cards and spent a pleasant time the rest of evening with that.

The following morning we were leaving the boat so had our thankfully last wake up call to endure. Every morning at whichever time were supposed to wake up to enjoy the sights, piano music would be piped into the rooms for 20 minutes. Sounds quite pleasant doesn't it?! Well I thought so too the first minute of the first morning, until it gradually got louder and we realised we had no volume control or way of switching it off. Add to that the repetitiveness of the music and how it stayed in your head for the rest of the day and by our last morning I found Paul with a desperate look in his eye and a his Swiss army knife in his fist, trying to take the speakers apart!