Cruising the Yangtze...In Style!

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Day One

We arrived for our cruise at about 6pm, even though we'd been told from 6 to 9pm. Typical Prompt Canadian stylee! We were given the option of upgrading for 600Y, but as we'd paid a small fortune anyway, we decided to stick with our balcony-less twin beds. The danger of a Drunk Terri falling overboard also influenced our decision somewhat. We ate noodles and had a rave to the class Chinese techno that came already uploaded onto Jacie's sexy new phone. My favourite was the gay-techno song about giving blow jobs to make friends. The homo's know how to charm, don't they!? A man sat outside our window for most of the night, and we had an early one so we could make 7am taichi classes on the sundeck the next day. The boat was pretty nice, and had a ballroom, dining room, coffee lounge, sundeck, treatment rooms and games rooms. No sunbed-room though, which I would have lapped up.

Day Two

The next day, despite the early night, Jacie made the TaiChi, but I decided on the extra half hour in bed. At breakfast we met our teammates for dining table one, two more Canadians from Ottowa, Hong & Andy, and two American couples who were called the Four D's because they were called Dick, Dorothy, Dave & Drea. (I kind of felt bad for Drea, the only one who's name wasn't really a D, but she seemed okay.) They were from Montana so I now have someone to take me hunting when I go to Montana. Me and Jacie decided almost instantaneously that Hong and Andy were gay, even though they were Chinese-Canadian and Ukrainian-Canadian, respectively, not very pro-gay cultures. But it turns out they weren't, or not yet, at least. We had our first excursion that day, which was to the Ghost City in Fengdu. This is the place of the afterlife in China, and had statues of different sins. They were a bit pervy, and as well as the usual drunken statues, and all round ugliness, they had a picture of cherubs being spanked, and a woman getting it on with Bambi. There were little tests all over the temple, like stairs to climb, where you had to hold your breath or risk dying young, bridges where you had to cross in different places, depending whether you were married/single, or wanted wealth/health. Me and Jacie messed that one up, so if Chinese legend is to be believed, we'll make a ton of money, but never be married. Oh well, we can be old spinsters cruising the Caribbean together and picking up hot young boys! There was a stone you had to balance on, which even though it was wet, I managed for a few seconds because it was just big enough to fit in my instep, and helped my balance. Ha, in your face, Chinese people who stare at my feet all day!! The weather wasn't too good, it was cloudy and dead misty, but we decided it was better suited to the Ghost City because it was a bit creepy. Our guide was a young boy with a real squeaky, crackly voice, who looked about twelve, and annouced his name was Hunter! He decided on that name, because he was hunting for women!!! Me and Jacie were the only girls on the tour who were under 45, and we burst out laughing when he said that, and ducked out of his eyeline! There were some cool animal/people statues, that were freaky, and some statues of very inventive methods of torture. I think the Japanese would have been proud!

That afternoon, we had an explanation of some massage therapies and lymphatic system information, which was interesting, (even after it had been explained into four different languages!) but I knew a lot of it, and what I didn't know, Jacie explained to me, so I had my own personal instructor. The Chinese lady tried to give me a back massage but it felt awful and I made a lot of noise, so she left me alone eventually. That afternoon, me and Jacie decided to have Cupping done instead, which is where they light a flame inside a glass bowl, and then move them around your back. They move to different places, and where you have trouble, the cups shouldn't move at all until they've sucked up some blood to the surface. Jacie was fine, but I'm really ticklish on my back, and kept laughing all the way though, and was pretty tense. It was nice once I was used to it, but I ruined the massage for some guy in the same room by making too much noise, lol. It was nice to know he wouldn't be getting a happy ending with two girls in the same room though. The woman told me afterwards that I need to drink more water, so I guess all the baijo is catching up with my kidneys. It was interesting though. We had a great nap afterwards though, until our intercom system started singing to us and making bell noises. It sounded like we had a ghost, and it woke me up as well, which was a bastard. When we were getting dressed, I was sorting through my clothes, which'd been in a pile on the floor (best place for them, eh?) and we found a note from housekeeping, asking if we wanted any laundry doing, lol. The note wasn't on top, it was tucked in between some of my clothes. Then the little housekeeping boy came and asked us if we had any but we had to explain it was all clean, I was just a really messy cow!

It'd woken us up for the Captain's Welcome dinner, where we all toasted the Captain, who then danced with the lovely Polish translator lady. There was some traditional Chinese dancing and pantomime things, as well as (randomly) Indian dancing. Chinese people are big on Indian dancing, which I find odd. Only one of the girls had any kind of grind in her hips, and the others moved like ironing boards. Shakira Shakira, they are not. The two Canadian boys didn't come out of their room all night, which they explained as just having been tired, but just managed to convince us further that they were meatpackers (or me, at least). Jacie danced with a boy from the staff called Leo (It was all very Jonnie & Baby, I Carried a Watermelon, lol) who was really sweet, and the night ended with lots of middle aged Polish women doing the YMCA and dancing to Abba. Me and Jacie hung out on the sundeck and realised we were half cut when it dawned on us that the boat had docked and we thought we were still moving. Time for bed, I think!

Day Three

Oddly enough, I failed to make it to the 7am Tai Chi again the next day, but neither did Jacie, so I felt better. After breakfast I had another nap, and slept through going through the first Gorge. Fortunately thats the smallest one, and the least impressive, apparently. Jacie tooks some photos that I will be claiming as my own, at a later date. I got up and went to see the second one, which was pretty. I took a ton of photos, but realised later that they all look the same, and have deleted most of them. The fresh sea air (river-air?) was great though, and it was so windy, it was like being back on the North Sea at home. We stood at the front of the deck and ruined everyone elses photos behind us, ha! The sea wasn't as green as everyone had been expecting, but we saw Goddess Peak, and generally it was pretty. We had an excursion that afternoon to the Songshan Stream. We saw the Hanging Coffin. Because of the landscape, Chinese people there have to bury their dead high up. The higher, the better to get it closer to Heaven. However, because of the 3 Gorge's Dam that has been built, the sea level is rising really high, most of the other coffins are underwater now, but this one is just hanging off a cliff edge, and hasn't been submerged yet. My camera died before we reached there, but again, Jacie's photos will be claimed as my own. We went down the Songshan Stream, were we were rowed by strong, old Chinese men down the river. The oldest there was 88! In the olden days, to save their clothes, when they docked, they would take off their clothes and do it naked, so the entrance ticket had a photo of them on it with their arses out. Fortunately they weren't doing it like that this time, although we did have a kind of cute young boy on our ship. Looking back, I think I probably only thought he was cute because if we'd capsized (which I was convinced would happen, any minute) he looked like the only one with enough strength to save me! We had life jackets, but they seemed a little feeble, and my whistle didn't work (yes, I risked hepititas to see if my whistle worked) which worried me. I sat in the safest seat on the boat (between two Canadians). Our guide was sweet and sang us some songs. She also told us there was a fish in the water called Stupid Fish who would come and nibble your fingers if you put your hand in the water. I wanted to try, but couldn['t reach as I was in the middle, but the Alex did. The guide asked if he's caught a stupid fish, and he said no, but she laughed and said that she'd caught one and pointed at him. This was pretty funny, and I'm glad she didn't get me. Her people (She was from some ethnic minority, I haven't just taken to calling Chinese people that, although maybe I should) made alcohol from putting corn and water in a clay pot and burying it underground for a year. I think that sounds like a party in a pot!

That night we were invited for a pre-dinner cocktail party with the Four D's in their room. They'd paid for the uprgrade and had a fridge, so we took our beer too and made it good and cold. They were dead nice, and I think they wanted to look after us, because they had kids our age, and they gave us beer and some snacks that they couldn't take on their flights with them. That night we went to the Captain's Farewell dinner (hello, goodbye, so soon?). There was a Talent show, with traditional dancing, a bit like the night before, but better. One of the members of staff did some amazing Step-Up style robot dancing, which was the best, and morphed into a line dancing lesson and then the macarena. The Chinese like to dance in lines, I suppose it's a communist thing, but then the Cubans don't like to dance in lines at all. Hmmmm. I've seen Chinese people having dancing lessons in the street, and have been asked how you dance by Chinese people. Maybe it's an Asian communist thing, rather than a worldwide communist thing, like rice cookers. I'll have to wait til I got to Russia or Vietnam and watch some dancing.

Our table decided to do our talent as the Chicken Dance, which went surprisingly well when the Chinese and the Polish danced as well. (There was a Polish tour group and a French tour group on our boat as well) The Polaks did a cool romance song about walking in a forest and making hand gestures that no one else understood, but they looked dead embarassed so it was funny. Polish Elvis did, anyway. Alex and Hong played a game called Cock lays Eggs, where they had to get ping pong balls into a box. It was hilarious, and the boys competitive spirit really came out. At 10.30pm we went through the locks for the Dam, which was the most anti-climatic thing in my entire life. It took ages, and was shit. Everyone else seemed to have a kind of awe for the locks, but I just thought it was boring and it was annoying that everyone else seemed impressed by it, and I felt like I was missing some kind of information that would make it better for me. I asked around, but I wasn't, I just didn't get it. We hung around a bit, and had a bit more baijo, which I think I'm getting a bit too used to as it's not having the same effect, lol. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing!

Day Four

The next day I slept in, and was the last one to come down for breakfast because it was earlier. We were going to the Three Gorges Dam Project that morning. It was really misty again, but I got one great picture by photo-ing the poster of the Dam project that was on the wall, haha. It was so misty we couldn't even see the horizon, so I got some good photos, but more arty rather than seeing anything good. We were harrassed by hawkers, but they seemed to sense my poverty and left me alone, lol. That was good because I was on some wet slippery steps, and I'd have had to knock them out if they'd tried to distract me. I had to concentrate, A LOT. Annoying Chinese tourists got in my way, and tried to walk down a really windey set of stairs when there was people coming up, and clearly not enough room for everyone. I don't really mind when people have no manners (like most Chinese don't), but when people do things like that, they deserve to fall down the stairs and break a hip. They really pissed me off, especially the old Chinese ladies. I know they've had a hard life and lived through so much and all that, but theres no need to be such a old fucker. We went to the shopping area, where I saw a nice jewellery box that was 1600Y. I would have paid 200Y, but she wouldn't go for it. I think this is why my haggling doesn't work. The price I'm willing to pay is always pretty low because I don't like much of the stuff. At the end of the trip the Polish people left our group for a flight, and that was a shame. I would especially miss the guy who thought he was Polish Elvis (even with the quiff, but his wife definitely wasn't Lisa Marie) who'd nearly killed a little Chinese man playing musical chairs on the first night. There was also an old guy who sounded like an old Russian mafioso who'd smoked 100 a day for 100 years. He was very dapper. But our favourite guy was Old Singing Polish dude, who was constantly singing to himself in the dinner queue, or out on the sundeck. My favourite song was when he walked up to the fruit plate for desert singing, "Ba-Na-Naaaaaa Split!" over and over to himself. His wife didn't seem impressed, but I loved him.

We went back for lunch, and me, Jacie, Alex and Hong stocked up on food for the next week, because we knew this would be our last great meal for quite a while, and ate about four plates each. We all checked out and said Goodbye. Dick and Dave gave us all their business cards in Montana, in case we're ever there. All in all, the cruise was good fun, and made better I think for Jacie and me to do it with someone who we actually liked. The gorges themselves were a bit boring (you see one, you've seen em all), but the excursions were cool. I think the biggest thing was seeing all the stuff that was around, and how the dam had caused the gorges to rise so much. We saw a riverside town which was absolutely ginourmous, and only existed to house people who'd been displaced by the dam project. It's a shame so many people are having to have their lives changed so much, just to create elecThe only thing now was to work out how to get into town from the docks. All the other passengers had been on organised tours which took them on to Wuhan, whereas me and Jacie had a night to spend in Yichang, and train tickets to hopefully buy!

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