There’s such a lot of world to see

For reasons that are inexplicable, the train from Chengdu to Chonqing, the port at which I would board the boat for the Yangtze cruise, takes 12 hours.  Fairy nuff, it’s a big country.  However, the bus from Chengdu to Chonqing takes 4 hours.  Riddle me that!  This is no superbus either, it’s a regular bus, except for some reason we got a free bottle of water, and for that – hey, it’s me and free stuff, you know I’m not complaining.

Because they were digging up the Chengdu to Chonqing highway, though, we spent the first hour and a half sitting in a traffic jam.  The Chinese passengers weren’t bothered – they had an apparently hilarious kung fu movie to watch, judging by the reactions of the guy sitting next to me, who kept hitting me and laughing at the funniest bits.  He nearly got to see my best karate chop.  The boat left from Chonqing at 8pm, and those of you who know how very relaxed I am about punctuality will know just how much of a sense of humour failure I was having on the bus.  It didn’t help that I was trying to speak to my pre-arranged pick up, Amy, who was having difficulty understanding what I was saying.  I was trying to explain that the bus I was on was about 20km from Chonqing, but this was not happening.  Again she gave up on the idea of the pick up, and told me to get a taxi to the Chiananmen Hotel.  Sounds easy enough, but I didn’t know the Mandarin for ‘Hotel’, my pronunciation of ‘Chiananmen’ is so unlike that of the Chinese that I might as well be saying ‘Baby Giraffe’ (and might well be, for all I know), and I didn’t even have the Chinese characters to show to a taxi driver, which is the favourite stand by.  In the end, I called Amy and gave the phone to my (female) taxi driver, who was sporting a fetching Gucci bag – fake, I’m guessing, unless she’d been overcharging a LOT of passengers, and skin tight white polyester trousers with a diamante dragon on the thigh.  Don’t think I can describe accurately enough how lovely they were.

I got to Amy’s office eventually, and there met the couple who I would be sharing a cabin with.  Hugh and Alice are both from Melbourne, and it was such a relief to see immediately that they were fun people to be around.  Hugh had a guitar with him, which always makes me like a person (yes, I’m easily pleased!  None of this business about personality or whatever, just carry a guitar and I’m your buddy for life), and Alice had the hugest bag I have ever seen in my entire life.  She’s quite a petite little thing, and could easily have carried herself in her bag, probably twice with careful packing.  Though I’m not sure how that would work, unless in some kind of Doctor Who parallell universe.  It turns out they have been travelling for a few months now, and, instead of sending things home, they have been carrying everything they buy or WILL EVER NEED in their bag.  I honestly lost track of the amount of times we had a random conversation about, say, a chess set or a flute or a Vietnam Lonely Planet or a baby giraffe or, you know, a whole edam cheese or a chopper bike and they would say “Oh yeah, we’ve got one of those in the bag”.  The bag was a legend in itself, and I will die happy now I have got a photo of Alice carrying The Bag.

We got to our cabin, a tight sqeeze for three not insanely tidy people, and our prayers were answered when no-one took the fourth bed.  We set off on time, had a couple of cold beers to toast the journey, and went up on board as we pulled away.  I had one of those moments when I couldn’t stop thinking “I’m on the Yangtze River.  The Yangtze River.  The Yangtze River.  The Yangtze…” you get the idea.

The next day was lovely, but quiet, as in fact were most of the days.  We wouldn’t get to the first of the famous Three Gorges until Day 2, so much of the first day was spent snacking (naturellement), chatting, reading, soaking up the scorching sun, and relaxing generally.  We got ripped off big time that night though, having gone ashore when the boat docked in search of cheap eats.  We went to a noodle stall with lots of different fresh veggies and meat that you could pick out for a personal stir fry. I asked how much it was and she replied “Noodles are 4”. Stupidly though, we took this as a sign that the other stuff would be reasonable as well, and she took this as a sign that she could rip us off and charge 4 each for the noodles, and 90 – yes 90 – for veggies and a couple of bits of tofu, some sausage, and a bit of dog meat. (No, not dog meat in the cans like Pedigree Chum, but actual meat of a dog. It tasted…smoky. More like bacon than chicken. And see what a service I’m doing, trying all this wierd stuff so you don’t have to? When the next conversation comes up about eating dog, as I’m sure it does all the time in your circle of friends, you can say authoritatively, “Hmm, dog, a bit too smoky for my tastes”). Grousing and grumbling, we headed back to our cabin.

This rip-off incident had left me distinctly short of cash, so I formulated a plan whereby I would eat only a Magnum for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next two days, costing only 12y a day, and hey, I can think of worse diets, eating broccoli and brown rice and stuff like that. Magnums are the way to go. Cheap and nutritious*!

*One of these is untrue.

I was up early the next day, ate my Magnum breakfast, and bagged a good spot on the top deck for our passage through the first Gorge.  And, well, this is another case I’m afraid where I think I’ll have to be brief for fear of running out of superlatives.  The scenery is unbelievably stunning, you find it hard to believe either the scale of the cliffs bordering the river, the closeness of them, or that you’re not on a film set – it has that air of unreality about it.  I stopped taking photos after a while as I realised that the scale of them, or the sheer beauty of them, can’t be captured on camera.  I heard that sigh of relief, people!

In the afternoon we changed to a smaller boat that would take us through the Little Three Gorges.  Battling our way through the million people also trying to follow their tour guide, we somehow (miraculously) ended up on the right boat.  It soon didn’t feel like the right boat, though, when the Chinese tour guide came up, stood right next to us with a mini megaphone, and started blurting out non-stop commentary in Chinese (obviously) and a somewhat painful tone to her voice.  I smugly pulled out my ipod from my bag, but even that turned out full whack couldn’t drown out the droning.  We made our escape, and spent the rest of the trip on the small deck at the front of the boat, enjoying in peace the even more stunning scenery, if possible, and getting mega tans from the glaring sun.

We’d realised that it was both Saturday night and, more importantly to me as a tack-loving Brit, and Alice and Hugh as ABBA-loving Aussies, that it was Eurovision night, so we decided to go out in the small city of Wushan, where our boat was docked overnight, and live it up.  Donning our glad-rags (I even wore make-up which is a minor miracle even when I’m at home, let alone when I’m away), we got the bus into town and I was amazingly relieved to see an ATM right next to the bus stop.  Although, I admit, I was quite sad to see the end of my enforced Magnum diet.

I liked Wushan immediately and immensely.  In the main square, old people were doing ta’chi and, later on after we’d eaten, they were waltzing round.  There seemed to be no other tourists about, this wasn’t for show, it was just how they entertained themselves on Saturday nights.  We climbed a gazillion steps (sheesh, it was a steep town), lured by a neon sign in the shape of a beer bottle, and were delighted to find ourselves in a Karaoke Bar.  It was a slightly odd place – children drinking beer were happily mingling with adults on a big Saturday night out – but very friendly, and we jumped in with both feet.  Each table had a turn at singing karaoke, and we gleefully glanced over the two available songs in English.

Let me say one thing about the Chinese – boy, do they love Celine Dion.  So ignoring the irony of being on a boat tour and singing this particular song, Alice and I tentatively launched into ‘My Heart Will Go On’.  And wow, I can’t remember such a reception.  It’s like they actually thought we were Celine Dion.  We had drinks bought for us, they got us up dancing, they just thought we were the bees knees.  We sang the same song once more and, for our grand finale, we sang ‘The Power of Love’.  This time, they actually cheered after the first line, in the style of ‘Stars in Their Eyes’.  The beers and our confidence added to a more, shall we say, exuberant, style of performing which we thought sounded just dandy but Hugh reassured us was much worse than the first.  Hey, what do we care, we’re Wushan’s answer to Celine Dion!

It was late, nearly 3am, by the time the taxi got us back to the boat.  We were slightly peturbed to be faced by a locked gate at the end of the long jetty we needed to go down to get to our boat.  There was only one way round – or, should I say, over.  The gate was about 7 feet high, and there was a small gap at the top we had to squeeze through.  Of this incident, I can say only two things; firstly, I’m glad I’d had a few beers, and secondly, I wish I hadn’t worn a skirt.  All I’m saying.

The next day dawned greyer than the previous two, probably a blessing all in all, and I was up early again, though Alice and Hugh slept off the excesses of the previous night.  I’d previously booked a trip out that day to see the Three Gorges Dam, which is an ongoing project which will, sadly, see much of the Three Gorges Flooded, people and villages close by to the river moved and rebuilt elsewhere.  This is, according to the official line, to help people living in the parched Gobi Desert get more available clean drinking water.  I’m not convinced, but went along because I was interested in the project.  It was so disappointing – most probably because of the pouring rain (but my Sri Lanka spectacular palm tree umbrella did cheer me up, it’s true), but also because of the limited views we had.  I took a few desultory photos, but was glad to get back on board and to a hot shower.

We were due to get to Yishan, the final port and disembarkation point, at 2am the next morning, so we all packed up, Alice and Hugh stayed in the cabin while I sat out on deck, in the quiet and fresh night air with Omar from Holland, Dawn and Kenneth from South Africa, and Andre from Australia.  We were having such a good time chatting, seeing the huge locks open, and generally relaxing, when suddenly, at 10pm, Alice came and told us that we’d docked at Wuhan – 4 hours early – and we had to leave.  So it was a quick goodbye to the others, one of whom in particular I’d really clicked with in a short space of time – but will be part of the happy memories of the trip – and boarded our bus to Wuhan.  This wasn’t the most fun journey I’ve had, as the guy sitting next to me decided to stare at me ALL NIGHT LONG (have you ever tried to sleep when someone’s staring at you?  Not easy… so I gave him a few elbows to the ribs).  We arrived in Wuhan at the sociable hour of 4am so found a good-looking hotel, negotiated a discount – even at 4am and barely any sleep, it becomes second nature in Asia and literally something I can do in my sleep – and collapsed into bed until 12pm, kick-out time.

Naturally, though, before we left, we stripped the place clean for all the freebies they were handing out – shower gel, toothbrush, comb – I was back on form, people!

Tags: China, Travel

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