We finished our breakfast, already docked at the pier barge connected to shore by a pontoon bridge. Other boats were already mooring to The Viking Emerald. Ashore, women along the banks were do their washing in the waters of the Yangtze. Just outside a man walked by with a pole across his shoulders supporting about five gallons of water in plastic jugs from either end, the pole bowing under the combined 80 pounds of murky water in the jugs. Arnold had said on the bus previously that even locals must boil the water taken from the river, when discussing the safety of water taken from the local water systems in major cities, such as Shanghai or Chongqing; while, that water is safe for local people to drink directly it can still cause westerners problems. So bottled ... read more

Easter Sunday began for us on the Yangtze River with the first glimpse of the sun we’d had all week. We went up to the fifth deck Lounge to see if we could connect to the ship’s Wi-Fi because the connection in our room this morning was spotty. We also decided not to do the Tai Chi class this morning. Sharon was able to upload yesterday’s blog as well as some pictures. We went to breakfast and ended up joining a table that filled up with travelers from Canada. At 9 am we went to a lecture by Bob on the Three Gorges Dam which we will be visiting this afternoon. This dam is the world’s largest generator of electricity by a renewable source. The need for this dam has been recognized for about a century, ... read more

Here are some photos for the past few days.... read more

I really can’t say enough about the Shanghai Westin on the Bund. This is a great place to stay and it’s understandable why it is the preferred hotel among our many fellow Viking Cruisers. Our bed is a very comfortable king, and I’ve mentioned the spectacular view from our corner room. The ceiling above the bed is recessed, and that is recessed again above the rest of the room and adjoining bathroom, so immediately it becomes and interesting customized living space and not just some boxy hotel room. I marveled for some time about the circular cut-out design in our granite bathroom floor. The walls and floor and shower are done in an attractive black, white and gray granite with a smooth marble-like look. I next noticed the circular recessed ceiling above the floor design to ... read more

My recent jubilation at the advent of spring may have been somewhat premature as I’ll describe shortly. We managed to get our packing finished on Sat with Sharon’s checked bag 33 lbs and mine at 44 (just under the limit) so that was good. However, the carryons are another story since they were both close to 25 well over the supposed 11 lb limit. We’ll move some stuff into Sharon’s checked bag before our first internal flight and some of mine into a backback. From what Sharon has read we should be ok. Sharon had warned me a couple of days ago that incredibly snow was being forecast for Chicago on Monday (today), the very day that we planned to drive to Chicago. This morning we awoke in southern Ohio, to heavy intermittent downpours. Sharon even ... read more