hello we've managed to get ourselves off the yangste river. we're flying today to shanghai where chris will soon be leaving me to return to good food, football and hopefully slightly colder weather. no doubt its raining in the uk- doesnt seem as tho wimbledon is faring very well already! its still hot here as every other day. oh well. nice to be in an air con internet cafe 'wang-ba'. the boat trip from chonqing took 4 nights and was lovely to chill out and not have to move our bags for a little while. altho disappointed to find chinese ideas of first class rather different to our own the cabin was private, quiet and air conditioned. western toilet always a plus. yes there were only 4 westerners on the boat-and 400 odd chinese. always makes for an adventure. but we managed ok. at least we werent in 4th class in another boat we saw, 12 ppl, on the floor. hole in the deck for toilet. nice. going thru the three gorges was amazing. started sunday at 5.30 am- a little early for our liking but watched the sun rise over wu gorge. then a smaller boat for little three gorges up close tour and an even smaller one for mini gorges. a little like being alice in wonderland but still fun. yesterday we were treated to the ultimate in chginese propaganda... the great dam- "an epic undertaking"! horrendous how much destruction it will cause and how many ppl will have to 'sacrifice for the development of modern china'- as decsribed to us by one young guy from hong kong. i think theyre all progranmmed to speak about it that way, its bizarre. but the consctruction was pretty amazing. treated to an aquarium of huge sturgeon, a temple with corpses in it- yep, no idea what it had to do with anything. and finally a cultural show against the backdrop of the dam, lit up with strobes and lazors, dancing, music and acrobatics which was pretty amazing. so, off to shanghai. hopefully we'l find somewhere to sleep, eat and do some shopping. hopefully a water park too...