TravellingFlossy

Well we all got to bed at a reasonable hour last night after making friends with two Chinese guys who actually told us a lot about China, the one child policy and other bits of political information that were really interesting to know, and their English was excellent meaning the conversation was not strained (as it tends to be here with the Chinese!). We were all in bed by 9pm (there is very little fun to be had on a train) and after taking a travelsickness tablet I was out like a light and did not wake up until around 8am which was a huge result for me as I have not been sleeping well on these trains at all. We had breakfast on the train consisting of the fruit we had with us and then ... read more

Liz and I woke up in our hotel room and stumbled down for breakfast still in our pajamas where we stuffed ourselves, took some extra biscuits for the train ride today and then headed back to bed for an hour. We showered, repacked our bags and were downstairs to meet the others by 11.30am. We chilled in the lobby of the hotel for an hour (giving me a great chance to get some blogs uploaded!) before our guide came to escort us to the train station, a pointless task for the station was literally 3 minutes away and we would have found it ourselves. Before we knew it it was time to board our train and we are currently chilling on it, reading, blogging, playing cards and dozing. This will literally be the way it goes ... read more

Our last morning on the boat and it was actually a little bit of a lay in for once, with us not having to be up and to breakfast until 7am. The boat had cleared all of the locks over night and when we looked out of the windows we were actually someway down stream and we could no longer see the dam from the boat. After a quick breakfast we were off the boat by 7.30am and we were driven to see the dam from land. Unfortunately, considering how wonderful the weather has been on the Yangtze, today it was back to the typical Chinese smog and haze, and we could only see part of the dam from the two vantage points we were taken too. Nevertheless the dam was pretty impressive and it ... read more

We actually made it up for sunrise this morning as we knew when it would be. We were out on the deck at 6am to watch it and we stayed there for an hour and a half before being called to breakfast. The views in the morning we truly stunning and it seems as if the river just gets more beautiful the further along you go. The water is getting clearer and the peaks to either side of us are breathtaking (James - think Milford Sound but bigger and going through it for three days). Breakfast was again a Western style which we loved. We spent the rest of the morning on deck, sunbathing, reading, dosing, taking pictures and enjoying the gorgeous scenery. At around 7.30am we went through the first of three Gorges and it ... read more

Liz and I set our alarm for 5am so as we could be up for sunrise on the boat. When the alarm sounded we peaked out of the window to see nothing but darkness. We fell back to sleep and the next thing we knew it was the 6am wake up call for breakfast and we had missed sunrise. We quickly got ready for the day and headed to the dining room where to our surprise a table had been reserved for us and our table had bacon, eggs, omlettes and toast laid out for us instead of the traditional Chinese fare. We were overjoyed with this and it was great to eat some bacon and eggs! As soon as breakfast was finished (they only serve food in half hour slots, so if you miss it ... read more

After a hot, sweaty, bumpy and downright awful night of the sleeper train (for some reason I cannot get my head around sleeping on a train and I panic with every bump) we arrived at a much hotter place than Xi'an. We were met by a man named Jim who was to help us with our bags for the day before we board the boat tonight. What actually happened was we headed straight of the boat and dumped our bags off then headed out into Chongqing to explore for the day. We were given some time to freshen up and have breakfast, we had taken a loaf of bread from the apartment and some jam to eat this morning and we enjoyed this in a park that Jim took us too. It was very hot but ... read more

Today is the day we leave Xi'an and unfortunately I was up unwell in the night, no idea what it was, but I feel sick and the feeling won't leave me. Other than that we all spent the morning packing up and headed to building 6 around 11.30am for our departure orientation. This was to check that things had gone okay in Xi'an and to prepare us with our tickets and stuff for the next leg of our journey. We are very excited to be spliting off from the group and heading to the Yangtze, group touring hasn't sat massively well with me and I am looking forward to not having an official tour guide and having less people around me. The others headed off the South China around 4pm, and they were heading on a ... read more

We all woke up with slightly sore backs from the massages yesterday but all agreed it had been worth it. We had a little bit of a lie-in which was nice and were up and out by 10am. CJ, Emily, Lizzie, Tabie, Holly and I all jumped into two cabs from the front of the apartment complex and headed straight for a day of sightseeing around the city centre. Holly, Lizzie and I went in one cab that took us to the wrong bloody place but after jumping in another cab we finally found where we were supposed to be and met up with the other three girls. Xi'an is a confusing city, much like the rest of China for there seems to still be this contant smog, meaning that we were trying to look at ... read more

Another early start and we were straight into things again at the orphanage. I began my day in the yellow room with the sick babies, and I was stunned to learn more about them. Some of them were really sick, there were some with heart conditions and some that had been completely abandoned in the hospital at birth. One of them was seven months old and she looked like she was about two months old, she was a skinny little thing and she couldn't sit up properly or do anything. She had the most gorgeous smile and she was so adorable but I felt desperately sorry for her. After feeding time was over in the baby room I moved between the red and blue rooms and played with the older kids. This continued up until lunchtime ... read more

Up and out at 8am and back to the orphanage for the day. This morning we did much the same as yesterday and it was nice to just get stuck in straight away as we kind of knew what was expected of us. There are three main rooms at the orphanage, the yellow room that has around 12 very tiny babies in it that are sick, the red room that has around 15 kids in it ranging from 8 months to 2 years and then there is the blue room with around 15 kids aged from around 1-4 years old. I flitted from room to room, playing with the kids and getting to know them a little bit better. There was not much more to do at the orphanage other than play with the kids today, ... read more