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Although we have no real plans and just figure out how long we are staying somewhere and where we are going to go based on the mood of the day, transport options etc, the Yangtze river "cruise" was something Andrew had been looking forward to since leaving home - hailed as a must see sight in the world.
Well, dissappointed does not even come close. In fact a nice old scots man inspired our blog title when he was giving his video diary. After discussing the merits of scots rugby and the amazing festivities had in Murrayfield a coule of weeks ago (sorry could not resisit!) he stated quite accurately that our "cruise ship" name Zhang He translates to mean a pile of shit in English.
For starters the cabin left somewhat to be desired. It is clear that at some time the whole of the ship had sunk as it was soaking on every floor and all the floors were warped and the walls water damaged. Alarm Bell number 1. Although we are no longer fussyabout where we sleep, the floor in the room actually had holes down through it. Alarm bell 2. The Chinese folk did not
mind, however, and we decided to lay down the rugs they provide for warmth as a makeshift carpet. To say that this was a luxury trip was somewhat a misprepresentation - whities are not really welcome to use the on board restaurant, plus once you have accidentally walked past the kitchen whilst trying to figure out escape routes you would not want to eat there if they paid us! And then obviously you can't go out on the viewing deck if you are not wearing a baseball cap or your eyes are round......50 Kwai - you gotta be kidding. We were pleasantly suprised to see a western toilet we could use although the smile was quickly wiped from Lara (or washed!) as she flushed the toilet, the contents of which came straight from the drain out the back, which was not connected to anything, and all over her feet. Nice! At least we were only eating pot noodles. Thank god we did not opt for 3rd class sharing with 6 others. 2nd class was bad enough.
So, once we had decided not to leave the boat, lets face it, swimming through the river was not that appealing either (although
perhaps cleaner than the water in the sinks) we settled in for the night...the day ...and then some more nights and days. Normally we crave relaxation and opportunitites to read books and relax but actually being a prisoner has not been high on our 'must do list before we die'. Although there were a couple of vain attempts to seek other westerners out we settled for the fact that we were doomed to lose a couple of days of our lives on this trip. Later that day however we did meet the other 4 westerners and all felt the same. Its always good to find others as miserable as you. It is difficult to raise morale between the two of you at times like this and with tempers fraying and every past argument being refought in the privacy (not) of that cabin, to walk out and see other people walking miles apart was comforting and raised a few smiles.
So, the first day we spent stuck in the cabin. We were woken the next morning by an exceptionally high level of fever pitch spitting and hocking of flem. Have we mentioned this?? It seems a custom here to spit
flem ALL the time and make the accompanying hocking noise every 2 or 3 seconds. At first the "no spitting" signs seemed cute and raised a smile, even after seeing the spitoon bowls in corridors it took some time for the scale of this activity to sink in, but with the population being so large it is like a constant soundtrack to your day ALL day. Men, women, children...the older the grosser and louder. Not to mention the Health and Safety dangers involved - I can not tell you the number of times I have skidded only to look down and see a boogey trail from my foot along the pavement or worse still...in MaccyD's. If only the Chinese were as prudent with their risk assessments! (Is it any wonder so many people died from SARS?)
.....Anyway, we digress, On entering the corridor we realised the first gorge was passing us by. The smallest and narrowest with hanging coffins. Sounds good eh? Well that's all the info the guidebook has. So then, after all the excitement built over the previous day (not) we managed to sleep through the first gorge, no doubt the bottle of Bacardi helped somewhat.....bloody typical!!!
After 36 long hours we were allowed off the boat at the 3 little gorges. This was a nicer boat but was just for a few hours. It was the best scenery of the entire trip although huddled with all of the other westerners in the corner of the top deck we hardly noticed as we were all so busy exchanging horror storeies from the previous nights spitting adventures. Once we had all stopped gassing we realised we were thorugh another set of gorges - ooops! Oh well. The acoustics were pretty special in the gorges and we were treated to some musical talents. Another interesting point to see was the enormous '175m markers' on the sides of the gorge which will show how high the water levels will rise. Although many villages have already been flooded as the waters are already on the increase it is easy to see why the dam has been so controversial as so many people will lose their homes and livelihoods. After getting back on the marvel that was 'Zhang He' we entered the largest of the gorges at 76km long, however it was already too wide and too flooded to be of any
interest. So, with another bottle of Bacardi left we took to the back of the boat and sat on the railings toasting our misfortunes and sharing our woes with our latest "temporary friends". A nice way to end this trip was to pass through the lock of the dam at night. Lit up like a christmas tree the gates are really quite impressive and lived up to their reputation as the largest concrete construction project in the world. By day however, it was not so impressive and the Chinese have yet again managed to turn a building site into a tourist attraction which of course costs you a fortune to go to. Maybe this is to recoup some of the 205 billion yuan overspend due to corruption and contractor bribery (not a surprise). It's a weird thing to have done really considering the dam will be unusable after only seventy years due to siltation. Although The Yangzi does flood, are they really that dumb? That old anectote "if it aint broke don't fix it" comes to mind.
So, with a desperate need to move on we were really hoping that the Terraccotta Warriors would live up to our expectations.
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