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15th October
Well impressed with our hostel, if you can call it that.. 'Johns Cosy Nest' is a spacious apartment on the 19th floor overlooking the Yangzi river!! All newly furnished too. I think we both had a good nights sleep here as we were the only ones in our 6 bed room! Didnt spend much longer than a few hours here today, had a quick walk up the road and was approached by everyone trying to sell us food,clothes..toys. We bought some survival snacks (very important) and later got our bus to Wazhou, that was after we got off the first bus we were incorrectly put on, god knows where we would have ended up if they hadnt of realised, but they soon got the bus to pull over and get us off. I must say I was slightly concerned when a lady got on carrying a cage with a bird in it...and the fact that no-one had an over night bag with them!! Anyways... we boarded our Chinese domestic boat! - this was certainly not the luxury boat we had originally planned to travel on - it was minus the steam room, sauna and normal toilet we had invisaged (as per advert on internet), but when the lady in the Xi'an hostel told us how it was a lovely cruise and alot cheaper we thought why not - lets try it. So yeah, we deeply regreted that decision and will def not opt for the 'cheaper' trip next time! We got off the coach and before we knew it, our backpacks had been picked up by a porter who was already half a mile infront of us, we got to our room and he wanted a stupid amount for it!! Fair enough he done us a massive favour as we had to walk down a steep hill to get to the boat, but still, he was trying to rip us off and I wasnt in the mood for it. Eventually after moaning at eachother in our own language and not understanding a word the other one was sayin, I paid him half of what he wanted and he stormed out. We were in 4 bed room so two mins later two women came in and thankfully one of them spoke a little English which became quite helpful! Again, the toilet was a hole in the ground...this was not good..and it already smelt and we hadnt left the port! What had we got ourselves into!! After the boat left the dock we had a stroll and realised we could pay extra to get upstairs onto the top deck, so we did just that and was definataly worth while!!
16th October.
After our feast of nuts and biscuits sitting up on deck listening to the Karaoke behind us and a bad night sleep smelling dog, wee and god knows what else we got up at 5.30am to see the sunrise from the Three Gorges. In all fairness it was beautiful and was worth staying on dog ship. (welll it was a bad cabin). Its hard to describe and pictures do not really do it justice but it was beutifull ..a mix between the grandure of the grand canyon and Jurrassic park! Its sad that by the end of 2009 most of it will be destroyed by a huge dam project. We spent the rest of the morning up on deck taking in the scenery and reading our books! Although on Dog boat it felt very nice and like we were on holiday! We were mini celebs on the boat and as it was hot, a chinese man signalled that i put on Suntan lotion...obviously i agreed! We picked up another boat and went to a small village where we got pendant necklace and realised we were not alone on the boat! There were a group of Amercians of Asian decent who spoke chinese! Well we stuck to them like glue and went for dinner with them which was rank! They were really nice but broke my heart to tell us there were c*** roaches under the bed..(loll i was on the bottom bunk ; ( ) i got out my mini sleeping bag and hid as much of myself as i could.!
17th October
Our big ugly chuggy boat pulled in to a little dock, here we all changed and got onto little wooden canoes. Quite an exciteing moment! although I was worried about geting thrown overboard though as having noticed that alot of the chinese will just push through you to get where they want. So we were headed off down another little river, the tour guide explaining it all in depth, but in Chinese... we just made sure we looked up at whatever they looked at and took a picture! Oh and this was the point when we were all meant to row in a little 'race' with the other boats but really, we were just getting splashed by the useless rowers infront (Unlike our experienced selves!) Again, it was so scenic and we felt like we were on some kind of film set. A little way down and we saw some kind of monekys tied up on a floating raft thing, not very nice and the rest of their family were up in the trees-and not tied up!.. We wanted to rescue the tied up monkeys and set them free but dont think we'd have got away with it! The tour guide took us to another little flosting dock where we then got onto traditional style little boats.. this tour guide was again talking away, and then everyone was singing and we didnt have a clue what about..we just looked and smiled. The boat pulled in to yet another floating dock where we got off and made our way along a floating walkway which was laid between the gorges...then to my utter shock we were to walk up stairs that were barley pinned into the cliff wallls, im not ggod with heights and felt a little sweat coming on at the thought that I was going to have to get on a zip line to come down or something, but It wasnt that bad afterall, and we followed the path high up around the edge of the gorge and watched 4 acrobats cycle there way along a trapeze rope which went from one side of the river over the other...nutters!! Back down on the floating dock we got to watch a show - again, we had no idea what it was about and we found their singing a bit screechy but was something diff I guess! On the wooden boat again to go back to our heap of a boat and minutes later it was a picture moment when the guide put on the apparant 'traditional costume' which consisted of a straw hat and a straw like cloak.. so then everyone wanted to have their pic taken wearing it.. evetually Liz gave in and was up there with the whole outfit on, and like she's done it all before, she posed for all the pics that were suddenly being taken of her!ha ha... and no, i never got up there, you know me! This was our last day of the cruise adn the most enjoyable by far. Eventually arriving in Maoping a few hours later we were to pick our 'local bus' up to take us a to Yichang for us to get yet ANOTHER bus to Wuhan. This was THE most annoying bus journey we have had, the driver took off and after 15mins - and thinking we were on our way - he pulls over and stops for about an hour!!! we had no idea what was goign on, and there he was playing carsds with the locals, having some food..we were like 'what is going on?!?'.. Of course it made sense when the rest of the cruise tour turned up in their coach to get on our bus -basically, we were waiting for them - what a con! Hours later the bus driver pulls up in our destination of Wuhan, lovely...but it was not at the bus station as planned whic screwed up our way of getting to our hostel. we stormed off and made our own way.. thank god. We were soo over hungry and tired...bed time for us!
18th October
After meeting a couple and discussing how hard it had been for them to get around we felt lucky that we had our flight to Shanghai unlike them who had been stuck in Wuhan for 4 days and could not book any trains or planes to get outta there. They were 'proper' travellers and were shocked that we did the china domestic boat...it was that bad! We had an icecream at the airport which was the best thing we tasted in days..things were looking up and Shanghai was not far!!!
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