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Hi again folks,
The third part of our journey started with another overnight sleeper train from Xi'an to Chengdu. We've now mastered this train malarkey and learnt that it is definately best to be in the top cabin where we are hidden away! The journey was fine and went relitavely quickly, the chinese were a lot friendler and a few chatted with us to try and practice their English. One was telling me how he had a German friend who said all English people are rich (arrh don't you just love the Germans, always trying to stich us up!), I tried to explain that we aren't and that we are travelling, think he might have wanted a ticket to England - we could have had a "yellow baby" to bring home!!! The inhouse "entertianment" on the train was interesting too, it sounded like a full on "chinese disco" blaring out of the speakers on the train, man it was loud and my god their taste in music is BAAAD! We took a video and I'm trying to load it up so watch this space....
We arrived in Chengdu at 6am and were met by our guide where we caught a bus to Chongqing, arriving about 1pm. That evening we were boarding a boat to begin a 4 day/3 night cruise of the Yangtze river From Chongqing to Yichang. We were taken to the local travel agent office to collect our tickets where we also met a Candian Mum and daughter (Corrie and Rachel) who were travelling China together and going to be on the boat with us. We decided to stick together as we had been told that there would be hardly any western people on the boat. We spent the rest of the day stocking up on supplies of chinese pot noodles and CHOCOLATE in the local Carrefour supermarket. We were also told by our tour guide that there was a Starbucks nearby...Carly was exstatic at the thought of a proper cup of coffee and almost couldn't contain her excitement as we searched the streets hunting for it. We eventually found it and boy that first cup of coffee after nearly two weeks was gooood!
Later that afternoon, we headed back to the travel agent to go and board the boat. We weren't sure how far we had to walk so when the offer of a little chinese man carrying our rucksacks on a pole (one at each end, across his shoulders) right to our cabin on the boat was given, we jumped at the chance. We paid him 10yuan (about 70p!) and we followed him to the boat. It was quite a long way and he was only small, he worked up a proper sweat and we started to feel a bit guilty and sorry for him especially when he had to stop for a rest, thought he was going to have a heart attack!Â
As we approached the boat all I kept on saying was that it reminded me of Titanic, especially as we walked up to the boat, this of course prompted both of us to burst into song and start quoting lines from the film.
We arrived at our cabin (little chinese man still alive!) and here was our home for the next few days. We were in 2nd class (which is mid range) and the cabin was small but clean with four bunks and a proper western toliet (phew thank god as I was panicing it would be a smelly hole in the ground!) We were hoping no one else would join us but two chinese ladies arrived to take the bottom bunks...still they were polite and kept thenselves to themselves so it was fine.
After our first night, the shock of the cold shower woke us up pretty quickly the next morning and we headed off the explore the boat. We bumped into another Candian girl Jen who had also met an English guy from Manchester, Phil and Polish guy, Kris. As I said before, there were hardly any western people on the boat so the five of us took refuge together. There wasn't really much to do apart from check out the scenery and the weather was also not the best, spitting with rain so about 12.30 Kris says "let's get f*cked"! After debating this for all of a minute, the beer was flowing and we spent the rest of the day exchanging travelling stories and experiences before playing a good old game of "21's". Later on that evening, we met up with Corrie and Rachel (who we met the previous day) and we all had dinner together in the restaurant. This was really cool and we all really enjoyed ourselves, the food was lovely and it really was 7 westerners verses 800 chinese!!
The next day, we passed through the first of the Three Gorges, these gorges vary from 300m at their widest and less than 100m at their narrowest. This was spectacular and amazing to see especially as the Chinese government are going close the dam in Yichang in 2009 which will flood thousands of homes where generations have lived for many years. The country has a huge shortage of drinking water so the water is needed to keep up with the demand the country has.Â
In the afternoon, we left the main boat a joined a smaller boat which took us further along the river the smaller of the gorges. The was absolutely beautiful and the river was so green. We had to boad an even smaller traditonal chinese style boat for the final part of the tour which took us the the mini-three gorges. Again this was spectacular and the scenery was amazing. A real highlight of the trip. We also met a retired German couple, Uma and Wolfrum (another Wolfe!) who joined our group that evening, which meant our ages ranged from 23 to 69! We all had dinner again and of course the beer was flowing.Â
We spent the final day on the boat with our group admiring the scenery and then it was time to leave. We had a really enjoyable few days and met some really cool people who we will definetly stay in touch with. We are both really glad we did the trip as it was great to see the contrast of rural China after the big cities of Bejing and Xi'an. Well we're off to Shanghai now which is our final stop in China.
Take care
Love
Claire and Carly
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