Thursday 5th April

I got no sleep on the train as my body knew we had to wake up at 5 am for a 6 am departure from the train. I am not impressed at seeing this time for the 4th time on this trip so far! We disembarked and waited at the station for 25 minutes for the subway to open, 7 am is a lovely time to travel in China there is no one around! After one change later we arrived at KFC, we had to wait around till 12 to catch a bus to the boat.

Three hours to kill, I managed to find free Wi-Fi thanks to the bar next door with no security on four of their Wi-Fi hubs! There aren't many free Wi-Fi points in China; the government don't like this idea! The time did go by quickly, I managed to download an episode of Made in Chelsea so watched that for 40 minutes. We moved on at 11 am to the local supermarket to buy supplies for the boat, seeing as none of us wanted to eat the food! The only thing we could think of was bloody noodles, I did buy instant mash potato instead! We brought bread and bananas for banana sandwiches, more nuts and crisps! Very healthy!

Our next mission was trying to pack to carry the food. I managed to fit three of the 6 pot noodles into my bag after removing my coat and Stu packed the water and coke into his bag. I also had several small bottles of my favourite milky drink and chocolate in my day sack and Stu had two food bags to carry! We then had to get a taxi to a 'place' to board the bus! Well this was possibly the worst taxi ride of my life. I have understood that driving in China is crazy, first our taxi driver was mental and weaved in and out of traffic honking his horn whenever he could. Then he crossed the cross roads and I honestly have never feared for my life until now, two buses going at full pelt coming straight for us. All I could do was shut my eyes and scream! Luckily the buses did stop, but we were wedge right in the middle of five buses. Not the nicest of experiences! We turned up last, even though we set off first again! Cleary our taxi choosing is not right!

We waited around for 20 minutes to meet our local guide for the boat where we were joined with several Chinese locals. Brilliant, I have joined a typical Chinese tour group! We travelled for 3 hours weaving in and out of the mountains, where the bus driver insisted at honking at everything. Leon explained to us that in the countryside the locals don't hear the cars/buses and cross the street without looking (pretty stupid!) and many accident have happened, especially to the young and older generations. So bus/car drivers honk (a thousand times for one person) to warn them we are coming and don't cross the road. This applies to other cars/buses and dogs too, where we were pretty close in running one over.

Our tour took us via a waterfall, it was lovely stepping off the bus, where the first thing that hit you was the smell of fresh air. It was really good! You could actually hear birds chirping too. I was happy, we had an hour to look at the falls and get back. I enjoyed the walk there through the forest, bamboo was growing wild and all the flowers were in bloom. The falls were pretty, not too big but it was peaceful and the fresh air was good.

After 20 minutes we strolled back to the bus and boarded for the last 1 and 40 minutes. We finally arrived at the boat taking us down the Yangtze River and through the Three Georges, after stopping for 30 minutes for the Chinese to eat dinner around 7:30 pm. All I wanted to do was get to the room and shower! We heard news from the previous group that the boat is a lot better than it used to be. Apparently rats and cockroaches were not an uncommon site; I had bad perception of what the room was going to be like. Luckily for us there were alright. Small but did the job, it had a funny musky smell which I can only describe as boat like and watery. But it was cute. The shower is possibly the best shower we had had, it was by far the opposite from a traditional drippy hostel showers!

The boat was much bigger than I imagined, I thought it was going to be smaller, and there are roughly 200 -300 people one board. One thing I hate, massive cruise boats! Luckily it is only for 2 nights.

After showers we went and found the hot water point and made dinner a la mash potato and noodles! Everything in China is spicy, the mash potato being one, luckily I didn't pour in the entire mixture! We are getting more used to the spiciness here, but it's not a bad spice more a flavoured spice than one to burn your mouth out! We have worked out I can take more spicy things than Stu, one being these tongue numbing chillies that you find randomly in your food!

Leon gave us a rundown of what was going to be happening. There was a planned stop tonight at a temple at 11 pm for 60 Yuan, tomorrow wakeup call at 6:30 am with music (seriously why do you need to be up so early?!) the second temple stop for 180 Yuan and the third stop a smaller boat trip to the Three Little Georges for 280 Yuan. We decided that we have seen quite a few temples recently and plus the prices were so much we decided to save some money.

We went to bed hoping that the wakeup call music wasn't going to be unpleasant.

Friday 6th April

We didn't wake up to any music thank god! I managed to find the off switch for the radio in the room! However room keeping did wake us at 7 am. No I do not want the room cleaning at 7 am! I am getting fed up with these ridiculous early wake up calls; I also don't believe I have made the room in such a tip already in less than 12 hours!

We emerged at 10 am ready to see the first gorge, the Wu Gorge. We were still docked, I assumed for the White City temple and we set off at 10:45 to go through the gorges. We got a good view from the front of the boat. The hills/mountains rising above us covered in green shrubbery. It was all very beautiful. We sat around on deck for a couple of hours, the boat re-docked at 12:30 for the last excursion. We found home in the bar/lounge area with Maria, Nina and the two Danish girls, Penile and Emma. We found the hot topic of conversation being languages. The Swedes, Danish and Norwegian can just about understand each other despite different languages. We found some Swedish words meant differently in Danish, one being 'speaking Swedish' in Swedish translated to 'farting Swedish'. The Danish also have road signs reading 'fart kheck' which means 'speed check'! This was extremely amusing to me and Stu being English! We also found (I have no idea how we got onto this topic) that the direct translation of 'taste buds' in Swedish is 'taste onions'!! How ridiculous, they also asked what we call armpit sweat, which is armpit sweat, their direct translation…'sweaty onion rings'! This kept us amused for the 5 hours we were docked for until we started moving again!

Oh Stu also decided it was a good idea to wash his vest and shirt, however they hadn't tried at all overnight which promoted the idea of putting them on hangers and him standing on deck at the front of the boat holding said hangers. I have taken a few pictures of Stu looking like a flag pole holding his vest! It did dry them pretty quickly as it was windy out front!

I had an early night as we have yet another long day ahead of us, we have to get off the boat at 7:30 am, so no time to see the last gorge, to catch two buses and the overnight train (I think!). The next few days are kind of fuzzy and I have no idea what the plan is, but I guess I will find out in time!

Overall view on Three Gorges:

The Three Gorges is an amazing site, being surrounded by gorgeous green scenery has been a blessed change. Being out in the fresh air has been amazing! The boat was lovely, despite having a slight fear of boats it has been good!

Total miles travelled from UK: 10,265

Transport taken:

Trains = 18

Boats = 1

Hours ahead of UK:

+8

Our Photos:

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