Saturday, April 20. Cloudy. or is it smog?

Easy Peasy! Wow, are we lazy or what? We stayed in bed until 7:30 Saturday just enjoying the 'nothingness' that awaits us today. The rain outside early encouraged us to stay on board and not make the trek to a pagoda and hike up the seven story structure.

Last night the crew again put on another great show, this time a sort of cabaret act of an assortment of acts and performances, from magic, dancing and the famous Mask Dance where the male dancer performs seemingly instantaneous elaborate face mask changes in the blink of an eye, six in all. Great.

After breakfast we took in a demonstration of Bottle Painting. That is the skill of painting beautiful scenes inside a very small bottle. The patience and skill is unbelievable, you would not believe it until you have seen it. It is a matter of skill, steadiness, patience and then more patience.

We strolled the ship, which was stationary as the shore excursion was still out. We then took in a lecture and photo show given by the assistant Cruise Director. It was showing his life and home in the country and how things worked from a farmer's point of view. He speaks fluent english and has a great sense of humour. It gave us great insight into life in China and how it has changed so much in 60 odd years, since 1959 when Chairman Mao started China down it's path into the modern world. The country has thousands of years of tradition and culture yet in six decades it has transformed itself into the powerhouse in that world that it has become.

China has more problems than most of us in the western world are aware of but is slowly overcoming most of them. Tough row to hoe though. In my opinion the biggest issue is how to overcome the air pollution problem: it kills over 70,000 people a year and that is the official version.

Fellette and I are cherishing these last few hours on board, being able to have interesting conversations with our table mates and some interesting people we have met. Most are experienced travellers and like us have left China's first taste until later in life. Tomorrow we are back into the mill regarding travelling on our own and experiencing all that this exciting country has to offer.

In the afternoon around three the ship docked again in the town of Fengdu and stroll for a few hours or so. It was more of an endurance test and cultural experience than a leisurely stroll but we needed some exercise. All told we did over 400 stairs, up and down and had an interesting education about the afterlife and underworld etc. we were attached to another group of friendly and talkative Ozzies. Good day.

40 minutes after boarding we had the Captain's Farewell Dinner before returning to our cabin to pack. We leave the ship around nine, Sunday morning, heading to the airport for a noon one hour flight to Guilin where we have two nights with an excursion to Longshen, then we fly to Hong Kong for two nights. We then board the plane for the long flight back to home. In some ways I am sad that it is over, yet happy to be going home.

Of course we have a few days to go which we are looking forward to with renewed vigor after thsi restful Yangtze River Cruise.

Hope to talk to you tomorrow…

Up to the temple...

Temple Top...

Rest stop, many many stairs...

A guardian up at the top...

Long walk to the ship...