All aboard the Ms Fortune, why would you call a boat that?! Pleasantly surprised to find that it was a proper little cruise ship with seperate rooms, restaurant and bar as opposed to the rickity wooden boat we had pictured! The first night we did venture into Chongqing (don't bother if you are planning a visit it is nasty, with chicken carcases lining the streets in plastic bags waiting to be picked up by the local restaurants). Carrie felt the urge to sample some local delicassies including, lamb intestines, cows stomach lining and throat, basically all chewy and pretty much tasteless - will not be repeating the experience. Needless to say Sharon sat at another table sticking firmly to veg.

Onboard the boat we had timetables of activity everyday which started about 6.30 with dodgy plinky plonky music being piped into our rooms, just what we needed! The first day our excursion was to Fengdu, the city of ghosts where it is determined where all the chinese souls go to after life, heaven or hell. Very odd place which is now a tacky tourist attraction, enough said. Talking of tacky, our after captain's dinner treat was a show put on by the crew members, they definately shouldn't give up their day job!! Awful just doesn't quite do it.

The next day was rather more picturesque, as we had managed to leave behind the industrial area and the manky brown river that came with it. The river turned green as we went into the 3 gorges and we boarded rustic wooden boats complete with 6 rower men to get deeper into the gorge. We felt very lucky as thanks to the dam project the water was now rising at 1m per day, which meant we were able to see views that will soon be submerged forever! But don't worry folks the water will only rise another 20m and will then stabalise you will still be able to experience the gorges if you fancy it.

That night consisted of Carrie being introduced to the wonderful world of Harry Potter as we watched the first movie on our TV from bed whilst going through the locks. The movie has now inspired her to read all 7 books so she start to understand what Sharon keeps on about (she is currently reading the last book!). We managed to get through the locks in one piece, after crashing into the boat next to us twice I don't think that there was room enough for 2 to pass! The next morning we visited the 3 gorges dam, which was quite interesting as we saw the locks that we passed through the previous night. Not much to talk about though as a dam is a dam. Then went to our hotel in Yichang for an early night for our full day and a half of travelling to Yangshuo. (Photo's to be updated shortly).