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Published: August 25th 2007
Our plan was to arrive in Chongqing at 6:30, spend the day there and board the boat in the evening. On the way to Chongqing Josie was awakened by a huge thunderstorm. Not thinking too much of it we started to get ready at about 6:00. The train stopped but we were told that it is only 10 minutes left to Chongqing. Those 10 minutes turned into 10 hours! It rained and rained and rained... we did not know exactly why we were still standing but we guessed that it is because the rail track might be flooded. Luckily we had enough food and snacks as we already bought some for the boat. The hours passed and passed and we were getting ready to spend another night on the train and maybe miss the cruise. This was the mother of all thunderstorms and the train rumbled with the sound of thunder for the full 10 hours. Lighting strikes never seemed to be far away and we half expected something to explode nearby from a direct strike. The train was hot and smelly as the power went off after about 2 hours of waiting, meaning no fans for cooling. As the train
Ducks
You know you are in the shit when a family of ducks floats past the train window, where there isn't supposed to be a riverhad stopped, the smell of the toilets was not being wafted away as it normally would be. It is times like this when you have to find your own entertainment and see the upside of things. At least we didn't have to go outside and get wet, and we suspected the train was relatively safe where it stood. Amusment ranged from playing cards, to stairing out of the window at the occasional people passing by getting a soaking. Then there was the old man who stood at one end of the carrage doing what we suspect was a workout but looked more like a spice girls dance, with a hint of lapdancer thrown in for good measure. Just when we had lost all hope of making our cruise and hoped to be off the train sometime this week, the rain started to ease off a little and reduced to a light soaking. Then suddenly the train started and then stopped again a little way down the track. After half an hour, the same, some movement, but this time it carried on and exposed the disaster. We passed villiges with water up to the roofs, rivers which stepped way out of
Floods
This was the reason our train stopped for 10hours, about 5 mins outside of Chongquing. Frightening. their river beds, flooded streets, broken electricity masts... This area also seemed to be full of duck farms. Of course the ducks took the opportunity to escape and the locals were fishing them out of the rivers. This gave rise to a classic scene of Chinese life, locals with no homes but huge nets. They where playing that age-old fairground favourite of "hook a duck", but for real. We passed lots of smiling faces, villagers with 3 ducks in each hand, necks broken. They had no homes that night but they sure had a feast of duck. There is always a silver lining to every cloud I guess, they seemed happy at least. We did not know what would await us at Chongqing and the sight of super fast flowing rivers made us feel a bit uncomfortable about the cruise.
Arriving in Chongqing and everything looked like as if nothing happened apart from it still raining there. We were picked up by the tour organiser and soon were assured that everything is going ahead and that we do not need to be worried. After a quick snack and more shopping (we had to refill on cup noodles as they
The "Instant Ramen" Water Bolier of Death!
This picture doesn't even come close to showing how mental and potentially dangerous this thing was. They are common on the older trains. It is a coal fired water boiler, just there at the end of the carriage. The train attendent shovels the coal in every morning, and you just go and get your water for instant noodles and tea. Open fire on a train, and boiling water that spews everywhere, things like this are what travel is all about. all were consumed on the train) we boarded the boat. We found ourselves in a relatively nice 4 bunk cabin with an ensuite bathroom, now I have to mention that our expectations were not set very high. We were lucky as we shared it with Eliseo and Zak which is kind of nice to be able to communicate with the people you share such a small place with for 3 nights, and also be able to get along with the people as you knew them already. The boat was a prime example for all the pictures we have ever seen on "holiday from hell" but hey, we were in China and living and cleanliness standards are very different here from what we are used to. Just accept and relax, it seemed to float ok and wasn't unbearably bad 😊 It was very interesting to see how Chinese people spend their free time. Pretty much all of them gathered in little groups playing cards, some mahjong. As soon as the karaoke started it was not short of very keen volunteers. All a very serious business, no matter how badly a song was sung the performer always received an acknowledging round of
The final level
Already much of the 3 gorges area is under water and the marker shows just how much more will dissapear. applause and strictly no laughter. The phrase "Strangling a Cat" comes to mind here, but we would not be so unkind to say that 😊 We thought for a minute to storm the party and show them how karaoke is done in england but gave up on that idea as the available english songs were not much fun. There was also ballroom dancing on offer, which seems to be pretty popular with all age groups in china.
The next few days we spent relaxing and observing the Chinese tourists. Every excursion that was organised from the boat seemed to be accompanied by a lot of noise. People were divided in groups and led by guides with megaphones. Time on the boat was spent playing cards, absolutely everywhere, on benches, in common rooms and in every room that had it's door open, some were watching telly which was switched on as loud as possible and some took the opportunity to do some washing (??!??). The only time we decided to get off the boat was to visit the little three gorges. And gorgeous they were! We had to get off the boat to catch a smaller boat through the gorges.
We actually had an english speaking guide which was quite a privilege. The boat stopped at a little market place where to our amusement we saw the chinese people getting the same touristy treatment. Even they walked off after being quoted a ridiculous price at a stall and have been shouted after to come back. That made us feel much better 😊 We had some fried potatoes on a stick - very nice change to rice and noodles. Back on the boat we passed a lot of houses and our tourguide explained that all farmers have been asked to move their fields, literally, to move the fertile soil up the steep mountains by themselves. Also, they have been promised accomodation - this however, was meant not so literally, as what was awaiting them was not really a construction ready to live in - few brick walls, with no windows and no electricity. At the end of the little three gorges we were shuffed onto a boat to see the mini gorge. It was all very idyllic as it has just rained and the gorge was partly covered in a light mist. We all came back very happy with the tour
and got ready for dinner. That night we ate out just in front of the harbour. We ordered a fish that was still alive swimming in a bucket - the cook confirmed our choise shouting for our attention and when we turned our head he smacked the fish onto the floor in order to kill it. I think this was the point when Josie lost her appetite but the boys happily tucked into the food. On the last day we arrived in a place where we had to change to a bus to get to Yichang. On the way we could catch a glimpse of the great dam - "Very scary" Andy says with eyes wide open. The thing is not only enormeous and holding back an unfathomable amount of water, but it has "allegedly" not been without its construction issues. Now, if the thing where to collapse, it would be a whole lot of water rushing down this town and for hundreds of KM I would imagine. The whole downstream area was very spookily empty and had reinforced earth walls like a river bank, do they expect it to happen sometime? From Yichang we had a bus booked to
Food Hawker at a Market
A delicous array of food from fried spuds to pigeon on a stick.. hmmmm,my favourite Wuhan - a very uneventfull 4 hours journey. Finally we arrived at what turned out the friendliest hostel we have been to so far - The international Youth Hostel in Wuhan - the Pathfinder.
Eventhough we had tickets arranged for the next night to Shanghai, the guys managed to changed them to allow us to stay few more nights in town. A great decision, as Wuhan is much less touristy with no "Hellows" and "Neehows" shouting from every corner. It seems to be just a one night stop for most of the tourists so once we went to town to explore, all attention was on us. Nice attention though, with general interest. So far we could nearly see the dollar signs in the eyes everywhere we turned up, so this was amazing and gave us hope for the rest of China. Everyone was very friendly to us and we felt treated like normal people and not like seemingly money loaded westerners. The hostal is inhabited by young art students which are painting, taking pictures or listening to music all day. We had the priviledge to get to know a guy, Rodney, from behind the recepction who turned out to
Not so Mega-phone
No matter where you go, be it middle of the city or a sleepy river you will encounter the dreaded megaphone. Tour operators across asia are guilty of using this offensivly loud weapon without provocation be a true artist. He showed us his website with his artwork and explained the thoughts behind his pictures. Amazing and sooo interesting! Josie does not understand how on earth a person can think of a feeling or something and then draw it. Genius! One point of note about the hostel (and this is not a complaint but an interesting note) was the bathroom. It is normal to find squat toilets in China, and in other parts of the world, but this bathroom had something special to offer us. It had a toilet/shower, you showered litrally over the toilet hole. We have stayed in places where the bathroom is so small that you can sit on the toilet and shower, but that isn't the intended use. Here the toilet hole was actually the same as the shower hole. It is logical I suppose to do this, but if we dropped the soap here, there was no retrieving it again 😊
Having met so many nice people in Wuhan made us think. It seems like you have to make a decision when coming to China, either you want to see the amazing sights the country has to offer (very touristy
Last person to complain
This is the only remains of the last person to complain of poor service on a river cruise. Let it be a warning to you all! :) places!) or you want to meet some "real" chinese people. Shame, as we like to experience both really.
We stayed in Wuhan for 3 nights in the end which gave us some time to finally catch up with our blog. We really want to keep it going but sometimes it is very hard work and it cost us a lot of time. However, all your encouraging emails and comments make it all worthwhile 😊)) We are looking forward to every single one as it really gives us the energy to keep this blog going.
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Katerina
non-member comment
You are amazing!
And so are your blogs! I love reading them, so keep up the good work and enjoy enjoy enjoy! See you abck in the UK at Christmas!