Monday, April 22, Boat Day...

We were on the road at 8:25 for the 1/2 hour ride to the boat for the River Li trip. The day was overcast and it looked like rain but it never did really rain all day long. We were the first on and got the best seats up top in front.

We were soon off for the 4 1/2 hour journey. The whole day we were in what I would call a river mist, hopefully not smog. The scenery was spectacular but after two hours of misty mountains we engaged in conversation with two Brits who joined the table. That made the day go faster. It was very relaxing, maybe not exciting. Right now it suited us perfectly.

We had lunch, a buffet of mixed foods that did not appeal to me as we saw the cooks at the back of the ship working in the spartan kitchen.

After the boat trip we wandered through the streets, lined with shops that seemed to go on endlessly. Our car was there and we drove some distance to see the bamboo rafters plying their trade for an endless throng of Chinese tourists.

Next we visited a 400 year old home that a widow lives in looking after her granddaughter while the parents work. China may have progressed into the modern age in some respects, but if this is any indication it will take generations to move the country folk into that era. She seemed happy enough, the family even had her coffin ready in a room next to her bedroom. Apparently this is common in the country.

After an interesting ride back to the city, some of it on a road that did not exist a week ago, we were at a local restaurant without a white person in sight. A typical five course meal with giant beer for Doug: $20.00.

Home early tonight, see our pictures, write the blog and try to get it off to Craig.

Tomorrow at 8:30 we take our bags to the lobby for a day of sightseeing before

catching a 6:30 PM flight to Hong Kong. Long day ahead.

After the boat ride

Don't complain about hard work!

Fellette and Grandma

Fields of something

Guide Lily and Fellette

Hmmmmm

Interesting mountains

Misty day, misty mountains

This says it all.

Waterfall onto ferns

We dined in last night! [In the room that is]

River view

Sunday, April 21. Travel day, but a great day.

The cruise is over and it was wonderful. We came to China with blank expectations and every day we are amazed at this place.

We had four days mixing and mingling with Aussies, New Zealanders, Americans and a few British. Good to be with them and great to be on our own again.

At the moment we are in the airport awaiting a one hour fight to Guilin: countryside I am told and hopeful of.

I had a great deal of difficulty with the internet in the first few hotels but on the ship and in this airport all is great.

We have a total of five domestic flights on this trip. It seems a lot but for some reason they are a bit more relaxed than in other countries. All the airports we have been in are new, super clean and we feel very comfortable in them.

I find the pitch and chatter of the Chinese a bit annoying sometimes. They seem to have a different sense of privacy and personal space than we do. It is a good thing we cannot understand them or it would be worse. If they were speaking English, French or German I feel that I would be more annoyed, not sure why. Right now it is just a background noise.

We have been really spoiled on this trip. Being a party of two we are so flexible that we can do basically what we want with the car and guide. We do enjoy the conversations with the guides that we have, good insight into this country.

I am also continually amazed by the modernness of just about everything here, from infra structure to how young people interact: the same as at home, yet the country is steeped in tradition from ancient China. The Yangzi River Cruise was a trip back in time. The ships are based on old time river cruisers, narrow outside walkways and looking at the country-side, it could be 100 or 1000 years ago.

The cities, although modern, contrast to the life of some farmers who are farming the same way as 200 years ago. However there are farms that use modern machinery. The country is losing it's farmland as the need for high-rise condos increases. Young people are lured to the cities and leave the farms so the government has incentives for them to stay on the farms: they can have more than one child and they do not pay income tax and so on.

China's biggest problem is not the outside world but could be buried by it's sheer numbers, pollution and lack of home grown food.

All the foregoing are just my thoughts as I sit and kill time awaiting our flight...

Last comment: Once again, looking at the people in the airport, they are clean, sharply dressed and tolerant of other people, all good attributes.

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...

Our Friday on the river.

Up again around 6:30 after a decent sleep.

It was a bit of a late night for us last night with the Crew Costume Show but it was well worth it.

We had our coffee in the bar area where the internet signal is. We were passing through some interesting countryside but I was determined to focus on getting my blog to Craig and then trying some pictures, surprisingly it was OK again.

Breakfast and then the ship docked alongside some barges where we disembarked and boarded the smaller boat and started our 1 1/2 hour sail up a gorge and then we disembarked that boat and boarded Sampans and proceeded up a still smaller gorge for about 15 minutes.

As remote as it is to us, these rivers have been home to the Ba people for thousands of years. They were dislocated from their ancient villages lower down in the valley when the Yangtze dam was started in 1993 and completed in 2009. The government paid for their new homes and their relocation expenses. All together over 1,300,000 people we relocated. Their standard of living increased greatly upon moving.

It was a very pleasant four hours and we got a chance to mix and mingle with a group of Americans and a Canadian traveling with the group. All seem to be veteran travellers and pleasant and interesting people. However I have absolutely no regrets about us being a group of two!

Lunch was again relaxing, then we sailed through the last of the gorges and docked at a new town of Wushuan, many people went off on walking tours for a couple of hours. Fellette and I have been looking forward to this free afternoon for about 10 days. Fellette read and I charged four batteries: the iPad, my camera, the keyboard and mine!

The rest of the day was again low key and quiet as we cruised up the river. Our total cruise distance is 600 from kilometres from Yichang to Chongqing in four days. [The later is what we call Chunking with a population of over 30,000,000, roughly the population of Canada.]

Transferring to smaller boats

In Sampans now

Recognize anyone?

Along the shore

Just cruising

Later back on the ship

New town we stopped at later

Note the stairs that are available no matter what the water level

River view

Sailing along...

Terraced farms

Our day on Thursday...

I cannot remember what I last reported so forgive any repetition.

My sleep was not great but as usual Fellette just fell into bed and was lost to the world the entire night, I tossed and turned thinking I would never get to sleep but sometime, I did. We both awoke as the ship pulled away around 5:45.

I explored the ship and brought back a coffee to Fellette. Breakfast was next where we met our table mates whom I think are all compatible.

We had lifeboat drill and met the crew and then did a bit of on-board shopping then I went to connect with the internet and took in a lecture on Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fellette joined in on this as well.

Connecting on the ship with the internet is challenging but in some ways more reliable than the hotels we have been in, if they get a satellite signal on the ship, all is well.

I previously mentioned Terry and the Pirates: That was a radio show when I was a young boy and later a comic book serialization as well. Terry and his crew were Americans dealing with the China Sea, Yangtze River and pirates on them. It was all very exciting to my young imaginative mind and I cannot help but drift back some 65 years when I look out over the river to the scenery beyond. Cruising the Yangtze was never on my hit list but I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see a bit of China in relative luxury. I only need cast my eyes to the shore and it is like another world. This is not Disneyland, it is China Today with all that goes with it rough as some of it may be, it is still fascinating.

After lunch we started our adventure to visit the locks and dam-site. That was a bit of an adventure, not the locks and dam-site but getting off of our ship and onto the busses, taking close to 1/2 hour. Then for a security check and then to the site, about a 10 minute ride. The heavens opened but we braved on, with our trusty local guide leading the way.

We never got inside the generating part of the dam, as a matter of fact all we saw of the dam itself was a low structure through the mist. It is actual a mile and a half wide and 600 feet tall. It is a massive project but only generates 3% of China's electricity. It does however reduce the coal consumption significantly.

A bit of a disappointing day but what the heck, every day cannot be a bowl of cherries weatherwise.

Crowded lobby!!!!!!

How does this toilet work?

Dam is 1 1/2 miles wide. Massive

That is all we saw of the dam itself. Back-side of it.

Night crew costume of ethnic clans

Terry and the Pirates on the Yangtze River...

Wednesday, April 18. Pleasant but smog...

I am a bit mixed up regarding dates and blogs because of the fickleness of the internet connection so I am just going to write and try to get some pictures off before the ship moves again.

We had an early night: I believe that we were on the verge of exhaustion from 11 days of intense travel. There is so much to take in it is difficult to digest. We were delighted to get on board around six last night. The registration was chaotic but organized. There are very very few people travelling alone, most are in groups so we had to try harder to figure out what was our schedule etc. Eventually we got it sorted.

We eat in a dining room that is a few decks up from the main dining room that is buffet style, very nice though. For some reason our tour organizer is on a different status level than most. I did not know this when booking, it explains a lot as to how we have been treated. Ignorance is bliss!

This ship holds about 440 people and has a very mixed lot, there are about 140 from the western world: Aussies, NZ, UK, USA, two from France, Holland and Canada, that is us! The rest are from Hong Kong and mainland China. There is one table for six independent travellers, us, an Aussie couple from Perth and a UK couple from Henley.

We love the idea of the scenery coming to us as we sit and enjoy it although there is a small shore excursion each day of some sort. It appears that we can relax a bit and catch our wind. There was an unexpected perk for us and that is eight pieces of laundry per day, lovely...

The smog situation is quite bad, I suspect there will not be many pictures taken with blue skies. However, the photo opportunities are everywhere. I cannot look outside without seeing a photo in my eye.

I hope I am able to get a couple of photos away even though we have only been up and around since we have docked at a village as a tour goes off an an expedition to visit some mountainous area, it was optional and we chose to just enjoy what is around us in peace and quiet.

Hope this gets through.

My internet connection at the bar!!! Only place it works

Now THIS looks like China

Some of the ship's decor

Taken last night after landing but before boarding, in the town

The cabin is very, very, nice

Wednesday, April 17

Hi folks. We are on board the Jenna, a Yangtze River Cruiser.

It looks like this may be an interesting cruise...

We had a good flight from Shanghai but we were mobbed by a group of 40 Aussies travelling as a group. Darned if they weren't in the same restaurant as us and darned if they are not on the ship with us. However, they (as well as us) are minimized by about 322 Chinese on board. Actually Aussies are not a bad lot to be travelling with, but unfortunately this lot is from the Melbourne area, and you know about them. There is even one from Castlemaine!

We were again upgraded to a very nice mini suite on board, nice room: really nice room.

There is limited internet on board so we trekked up to the bar as the barman looks after the wireless arrangement on board. I tested it and it works, but we are docked. So I may be out of contact so be prepared for radio silence folks.

By the way, I found out that we have free Internet because we booked with Access China. Hmmmm, I wonder what else is free here?

Long day, I think I may return to the cabin for a shower and a good sleep.

By the way, please forgive my spelling mistakes, I am using a strange keyboard.

Bank of China, centre

Fellette on last night stroll on Bund, which is Indian for River Bank

Last night stroll

Night on the River Bank

Our hotel is the building on the right

Pink and yellow watermelon