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Our next destination was a 4 day 3 night cruise down the Yangtze river (and into one of the 3 so called furnaces of china). The cruise would take us from Chongqing to Yichang through the 3 gorges and past the big dam. We decided to go for the 'local' cruise (half the price, all Chinese speaking) instead of the deluxe one. It was very basic and slightly moldy with cockroaches..but it turned out very well because we met 6 other backpackers. There were 2 couples from Spain and one from Germany and we had a great time with them.
The scenery on the yangtze in the first few days was unimpressive and the banks were dotted with unattractive 'white tile towns'. We stopped off at various temples at 6am every morning. One of these (the Fengdu Temple Ghost City) represents hell for Chinese people and we walked through a dark tunnel of hell (like a very shabby version of the london dungeon). It was very interesting to see however as it will be submerged, along with 99 other tourist sights, when all of the gates are closed on the 3 gorges dam. The water level of the river is supposed to rise 175m which you can see marked on the bank in various places. On the boat we discovered Chinese karaoke which was hilarious! As a group we sang My heart will go on from Titanic to applause and calls for encore from the Chinese!
The scenery and the water quality improved as we moved down the river and on the 3rd day we went on a boat tour of the 3 little gorges. The gorges were very beautiful despite the smouldering heat.
The cruise ended in Yichang, 5hrs on the bus from Wuhan where we stayed the night and arranged our flights to Shanghai for the next day. We travelled to Shanghai with the Spainish couple from the cruise. The flight was delayed 4 hours meaning we arrived in Shanghai at 4 am. But we can't complain because after a lot of angry shouting from the other passengers we received free noodle pots and coke (twice)!!
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