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Thursday 23rd September
Well we did eventually board our boat at about 6.30pm. This was a chinese tourist boat so we really were the only english on board! The boat itself looked like a shack on water from the outside but inside it was actually quite nice. We had cabins which slept two people, each with their own private toilet (an actual proper toilet rather than a squat!lol) and a shower. In the evening we all got together in one of the function rooms and spent the evening playing cards and relaxing. Stu one of our group members had bought a guitar on route so we had our own private entertainmnet which was really nice! We ended up staying up till 2.30am to pass through the three gorges which were really impressive and then headed off to bed and this is where the nightmare began.lol. We were happily laying in our comfy beds only to be woken by the pitta patta of feet...there was no mistaking that the boat had rats!! We nearly had half our group (mainly girls) jumping overboard. Thank god we didn't see them, even though we had one in our air conditioning unit, but one of our group wasn't so lucky and found one running across his room.lol. I can safely say it was our worst night sleep.lol.
Friday 24th September
After a sleepless night we all met on deck at 10.30 am and transferred to a small river boat for a few hours. This was fantastic as we could relax and view all the beautiful scenery surrounding the Yangstze river. When we returned at 1pm we had lunch together on deck and headed to our rooms for a quick nap. In the evening we stopped on route and and went to a local restaurant for dinner and had a walk around the nearby villages, before boarding th boat for our second night.
Saturday 25th September
It was a very early start as we docked at 7am so we had to be up for 6am! There was a private bus waiting for us which took us 5hours to get to the station, we then boarded our 4th overnight train to Yangshuo. So all in all today was just a day of travelling.
Sunday 26th September
Another early start we had to get off the train at 4.50am so we were all very tired. Especially since we had a chinese snorer in our cabin who was lucky he did not get smothered by our group.lol. It took 2hours by bus to get us to Yangshuo which is just stunning, the area is surrounded by rivers and moutains which is a welcome change from the built up cities.
We had a few hours free time in order to get showered and in the afternoon we went on a river cruise which is the best way to view the scenery. We were in a boat, but on the river you could sit on rafts where local people use bamboo to make the raft which you sit on and they explore the scenery with you.
We all went for dinner together in evening and had few drinks after in some of he nearby bars.
Monday 27th September
We had the morning free so 5 of us hired bikes for the morning and went for a 3hour bike ride... to begin with it was pretty scarey with all the mad motorists on the road, but once we got to the countryside it was much more relaxing and the views were stunning.
The group met in the afternoon and we all went to 'moon cave' where we used the mud bath and hot spring pools...this was really good fun! But health and safety clearly does not exist as in order to get to the mud bath you had to climd practically on your hands and knees through the caves which were so slippy and bloody steep..but it was well worth it when we eventually got there.
We had a few hours to get showered and get the mud out of our hair.lol. before going for dinner (local beer fish) and then again for a few drinks in the bars nearby!!
We are going on our last overnight train tonight to Hong Kong so will update when we are there. Love you all leanne and rob xx
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