We were stacked 3 high and stuffed in a cabin full of chain smoking spitting china men and screaming babies. Luke had man flu for the day and thought he was going to die. After fashioning a screen of scarves and jumpers around his bunk he managed to get some sleep, albeit that he sounded like darth Vadar for most of it. Brad slept the whole time, Dani and I read a lot and napped fitfully.
When we got to YiChang the taxi took us to the dock and much to our surprise there was no boat. After 50 phone calls by the taxi driver we were driven through what can only be described as a ghetto rubbish dump and into the town centre where we were promptly ejected outside a 5* hotel without an explanation. We soon discovered that the cruise itinerary had changed and we were to spend a night in The hotel and get on board the following day. All included in the price and didn't put our hand in our pocket for anything. We literally went from hell to heaven in an hour and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the end of 2012 and start of 2013 from our luxurious abode on dry land.
The following morning we were picked up and spent the entire morning on the 3 gorges dam which quite frankly is a man made wonder beyond description and my geeky brain is so full of useless but interesting facts, I think I may explode. I have run out of adjectives which could adequately describe what I have seen these past few weeks. After a tour of the dam, ship elevator (for baby boat - under 10000 tonnes!) and ship locks, of which there are 5, we headed over to our boat for lunch and boarding. Much to our relief it was there, fully staffed and good to go. Brad says this kind of thing is pretty common in china so it's best to just not panic and go with the flow, and we certainly ended up doing alright out of it.
We didn't bother with the optional tour, rather choosing to go to the gym and have a wander around the boat and getting ourselves settled in for the next 4 days.
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