Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away. . .

Hidey Ho Junior Rangers,

Yep still in China . . . . . and thus begins the saga of the Yangtze Cruise . . . .

So Cruise Ships for me evoke images of "Fair Star - the Fun Ship" or of course, the ever popular "Love Boat - Exciting and New". Five Star luxury, swimming pools, friendly staff, great food and definitely cocktails. Well let me tell you about Chinese Cruise Ships . . . . .

Everyone kept saying "Lucky, you are on the the good boat tomorrow". Well we would hate to see the bad one. We were in a second class cabin which was pretty tiny (surprisingly not like the picture at all) and we were sharing it with a Chinese couple. They spoke no English, we speak no Chinese, an awkward arrangement to say the least.

Our guide was very very camp and very very annoying. He introduced himself as something that sounded like Jane - so we called him Jane which of course we found hilarious. He didn't seem to care because we have Laowai (foreigner) immunity. He was constantly trying to extort money out of us by telling us to upgrade and trying to book our onward travel. It got to the point where I said flat out that we were not going to tell him where we were going after the boat trip to stop his bloody nagging!! He also kept telling us off for not listening to local guides even though we told him on a number of occasions that we didn't understand Chinese. It was a good day if we could go 2 hours without seeing Jane!

The boat had certainly seen better days. We wanted to check out the engine room and take some photos for Dad Barry but everything looked scary and shakey in there. Also it is quite hard to explain that you "want to take photos of the engine room because your Dad is a marine engineer back in Australia" all in Chinese. That is not one of the phrases in the back of the Lonely Planet!!

People smoked everywhere on the ship - a favourite spot was directly underneath the No Smoking signs. There was cigarette burns on the furniture and ash and butts on the "I've seen better days" carpet. It was truly a delight!! Not to mention the terrible Chinese karaoke. It tended to kick off at about 10am. This one guy got up and sang a few really bad renditions of Chinese favourites and then thanked the crowd (of five including us) like a complete rock star. Too funny. . . they don't even get drunk first which is a prerequisite for doing karaoke in Australia.

Back to the boat - there were two, I repeat two, lifeboats that would fit about 15 people in. The life jackets were of very similiar vintage and design to those worn by Kate and Leonardo in "Titanic" although decidedly more mouldy. Lucky there were no icebergs to speak of for the whole trip. It did however, feel cold enough!!!

The Yangtze is a remarkable river. It is over 6000km in length and is a lifeline for millions of people. The smallish towns on its banks are bigger than Sydney and goods are constantly shuttled up and down the river. The scenery in between the cities constantly changed between average and amazing. The Three Gorges, which are very famous, were spectacular but sometimes hidden amongst the fog and pollution. I have been a little intrigued by the Yangtze River ever since I saw the Playschool episode where they read the book "Ping". Ping was a duck who lived on the Yangtze on a little wooden boat with eyes. The eyes painted on the bow of the boat are for good luck by the way. Little did I realise that Ping was an early iteration of Peking Duck. All the same the story was enchanting, however the real deal is not quite the same. We saw very little wildlife on the river - poor old Ping would have had a tough time surviving in the polluted water. Also the Yangtze is in the process of being dammed. The project has been on going since about 1997. When it is finished it will be the biggest dam in the world. The costs other than dollars are also huge. Up to 2 million people have to be relocated, the potential for catastrophe is relatively high and a number of endangered species have even a tougher fight for life. It is scary and a little sad. We are not sure if the general public are proud of the feat of engineering or too scared to voice their real opinions. According to the Lonely Planet someone ended up in prison for ten months for voicing hers.

The voyage was certainly an experience - sharing a room with locals was difficult. Despite the No Smoking sign, our room mate wasn't afraid to light up and due to the lack of space we couldn't all be in the room at once - except for sleeping. We felt like homeless Laowais constantly wandering around the boat looking for somewhere to sit without cigarette smoke. And did I mention that our room mate also snored? In a massive way . . his poor wife probably never sleeps!! Anyway, we did meet a fantastic couple from Poland - Dariusz and Ella. There were 7 Laowais on a boat of about 300 - 400 people so we all stood out and people made a point of staring. . .all of the time. Even after three days they still stared. It was too funny. Dariusz travels to China for business and speaks Mandarin which was quite an unfair advantage!! But it was very handy because he listened in on conversations for us.

They were both very funny and saved us from going completely insane on the boat!! We had so much trouble sleeping so we were constantly tired and trying not to be grumpy. I am pleased to say that after a particularly rough night, Adam began to embrace the cone of silence and was worse than me!!!!!!!

So the post match wrap up is "Three days is way long enough and pay extra for your own room!!!".

We arrived in Yichang a little scarred but in good spirits. We are staying for two days, mainly to get washing done. Our clean clothes store is perilously low. We are staying in a good hotel - by ourselves (haha) - and are enjoying uninterrupted sleep. Tomorrow we are braving communal living again and catching the sleeper train to Xian, home of the Terracotta Warriors. Buying train tickets is always hilarious. People LOVE staring at us at the train station and we are never sure if we have bought a ticket to the town we want to go to. Ticket purchasing involves Adam speaking excellent Chinese (well I can understand him even if the locals don't) and drawing pictures not unlike a good game of Pictionary. We seem to have it down to a fine art now - we know how to find out the train numbers before getting to the ticket counter and we are both proficient at the blocking maneouvre so people can't push in. We love it and always high five after a successful purchase. The real high five is saved for when we arrive in the right city!! We have decided not to go to Shanghai due to exhaustion and time constraints. Next time maybe . . . .

Always great to get emails and hear news from home. Chinese newspapers are very hard to read!!!!