Tuesday 26th October
We have just arrived in Guilin after one of the most tedious train journey's to date. We were unable to secure any beds for the journey so had to make do with hard seats, however nobody could tell us how long the journey was and as usual the train carriage was over subscribed.
We had been assigned seats in two rows and I had the pleasure of sharing my row with a gay elderly chinese man and his teenage boyfriend who seemed intent on getting jiggy with it in full view of the trains overly tollerant passangers.
I am fairly sure that they would have ripped each others clothers off then and there if it hadnt been for the rather restrictive space limitations. Fortunately they got off (not literally) after a few hours and as per usual someone jumped into their seats before they had made it to the door. Still these ones seemed a little less frisky so it was all good!
As it turns out the train journey was just over 15 hours, during which time we changed seats no leass than 3 times, had to endure the dulcit tones of multiple wannabe opera singers screaming down the carriage with their trolleys of dubious looking food stuffs and try to get some sleep under the ultra powerful florescent lighting that would have been more suited to wembley stadium. Needless to say we failed miserably, that is except for Tyler who seems to have the ability to sleep anywhere, anytime, lucky git!
Its been a few days since I have been able to post so I guess I should also fill you in on the Yangtze cruise we took from Chongqing to Yichang.
Cruises attract a certain type of clientele, in our case this meant Germans, lots and lots of Germans! In fact out of the 100 odd passangers sailing their were only a spattering of english speakers and as a result we were all allocated one table for all of the meals which was good!
The 3 gorges cruise very almost got renamed to the 1 gorge cruise after a very large landslide closed the entryway to the 3rd gorge (our pickup point for the 2nd gorge) and instead the boat had to stay in port whilst they tried to clear a path through. Luckily they managed to rearrange the pickup for the 2nd gorge and we disembarked for a 4 hour trip up and down the valley when we would once again return to our boat and wait for news of whether or not we could continue.
I am not sure if you agree but I think there are only so many photos that one can take of a specific thing, and for hills and valleys this number is pretty low for me. Whilst the scenery was spectacular at points, I had pretty much had my fill after a couple of hours and for the most part we just chilled out with the other english speaking tourists.
After a little over 8 hours our ship was given the all clear to proceed through the gorge, although it meant that all of the vessels had to proceed in single file which would delay the remainder of our itinerary.
Still the cruise was a great way to relax after the non stop hussle and bussle of the cities and the 3 gorges dam was an incredible sight, even, as it turned out to be, at 02:00 am.
Whilst aboard we met two Austrian girls who were on a tour of China and we shared a train with them to Wuhan, this time with no seats at all which meant taking pot luck as soon as you saw someone rise from theirs.
They also taught us that you can barter over the price of hotel rooms. The science behind this is pretty complex so try to stick with me but the way I understand it is this, you go up to the receptionist and say "I would like a discount" and then they just slash the prices.
Confusing I know but I have seen this in practice and I can assure you
that it's true.
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