Days 7 to 10

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Day 7 - Yangshuo to Wuhan

Day 7 was dubbed "slothfest 2006" whereby we slept in, ate breakfast, played on the internet and then parked our buts at a table at our favorite local restaurant and ate....and the ate some more and then....ate SOME MORE hahaha.

In the afternoon we bussed to Guilin train station before heading out on the sleeper train to Wuhan. Thankfully it was *slightly* nicer than the first, but hey, a spade's a spade right!!!


Day 8 - Yangtze River, near Yichang

Welll we survived 24 full hours of travel, starting at 4:30 the afternoon before with the bus then the train, we got ff the train at Wuhan at around 8am before bussing from Wuhan to Yichang.

We had a delish lunch there before ANOTHER bus past the 3 gorges before boarding our cruise ship/boat at around 4:30 - AGH!!!!! Talk about exhausted.

The ship was by all accounts better than we expected (we had low expectations so maybe that helped!).

By about this point we were becoming increasingly comfortable with the locals rubber necking to look at us and caling out "Hello" and "Ni Hao" (usually hello and when we reply Ni Hao they burst in to hysterics!!!). On the language side we're getting better and can say, cold, no, thank you, sorry, excuse me, beer etc etc!!!

Day 9 - Yangtze River, no idea where

Day 8 was fun. We took a ferry from the boat and watched a traditional chinese show (somewhat confusing with no translations but we got the drift) and experienced the "Boat Trackers" - where you go in to canoe type things (20 odd people per boat) and when it gets shallow, the guys all jump out and pull the boat along - quite amazing.

Along the way we saw some beautiful gorges, hanging coffins and monkeys. Lunch was back on the boat followed by a nanna nap.

We went on shore for dinner and were highly amused when there was toilet paper on the table for serviettes (figures as there's NO toilet paper anywhere to be seen in a freaking toilet!!!).

We headed back to the boat for an amusing evening of Karaoke. Kate & Mike sang a beautiful version of Hotel California (quite the cute couple, and they did bloody well considering there was NO LYRICS!), then Kate & Jen did Aint that a kick in the head and then we did a group song - Take my breath way from Top Gun - HILARIOUS, cant wait to get those photos up! hahaha

Day 10 - Chongqing

We had a little sleep in this morning followed by a Mah Jong lesson (great fun, its very much like Gin Rummy). The locals got a kick out of seeing us play and couldnt help but to help us as we fumbled along!

We left the boat and checked in to our hotel and went out for the local Sichuan (Scezhuan) speciality of Hot Pot where you get all your raw meats, foods etc and you put in in the boiling water/oil/mix in the centre of the table to cook. Pretty average to be honest, it all tasted the same.

The city itself though was amazing - 32 million people live there - WOWWWWWWWW - and its very modern too.




Ok that will have to do for now, we're off to dinner. Still 2 more days to update you on and tomorrow is the pandas - YAYYYYY!!!

Love you all.

S
xxx

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