Well the first night went by ok, except for this rude pig of a man on the opposite bunk to me, came in at 5am stinking put the light on and climbed into his bed leaving lights on, was fuming, had to get up and turn off light then he proceeded to snore so loud the second his head went down so spent rest of night awake, o well, plotted to kill him later.
Boat docked early at a place called Fengdu, nicknamed the city of ghosts due to its sinister history. Legend has it that an evil emperor descended on the town killing villagers and claiming the throne. The emperor took the sword of the previous emperor and got a villager to fashion a new handle for it out of bamboo and when his greed took him to a new battle the handle snapped and killed him forcing his spirit to haunt the village and bring misfortune. Curse obviously worked as the town is now deserted as it will soon be flooded due to the new gorges dam further down the river which is causing the water levels to rise flooding areas along the banks.Don't cross evil emperors i think is the moral of the story. Place was amazing, really spooky place as they had evil statues around the town to ward of the evil spirits, spooky!!! Really cool seeing a whole town deserted! Had loads of temples to wander around some unpleasant devil worshipping type ones with sinisterly named places linking them such as the pass to hell, track to the nether world and abysmal bridge. Truely amazing place, got the cable car up to the highest point at mount mingshan, known as the capital of ghost kingdom and the nether world, thought to be the last home of mankind. Spooky.
Had a really good time on the river, best night was when we all played cards on the deck and as all the chinese are obsessed with cards they all swarmed around us to see what we were playing. Later they invited us to eat with them and they were giving us food (chicken feet eurgh) and beer which tasted suspiciously fishy, but was amazing, they all joined in the game, it was ace, got to see a different side to the chinese culture. realised most not being rude when stare at you they just intrigued. Stopped at other amazing places along river, docked in one port and went to see some chinese drama school play which was really good and got to try some yummy chinese cuisine which didn't involve heads, feet or genitalia.
The best part of the river for me was the little gorges tour which we did in little wooden boats were go through the narrowest part of the river and see the gorges, was breathtaking, also got to see the huge 3 gorges dam at the end of the yangzi. The dam is ginormous and will raise the level of the river flooding parts, its the world biggest dam and if it broke 40 million people would be dead in 10 mins, bit of a scary concept. glad we did the trip, got to see and do some amazing things and had some amzing experiences with the people we met.
Finally our boat docked in wuhan were could get back on land for a day or two, Wuhan is a huge metropolis with some great nightlife, place looked amazing at night, wandered around for a day then booked train to shanghai.
