Day 12

So today is our last day on the Yangtze and this was the view from our cabin when we opened our curtains this morning. By the way, did you know that the Yangtze flows nearly 4000 miles from western China to Shanghai. That's some river. 

It really is a dirty river, but I suppose that's no surprise when you see boats such as ours just disgorging their rubbish over the side. At least they don't throw human remains in like we saw in Nepal. Our guide told us today that in this area it rains on 280 days a year and that seeing the sun is very rare. Well although it's very murky we haven't had any rain and I did capture the sun almost putting in an appearance. 

We have had a very relaxing day today. We did nothing this morning and this afternoon had a two hour boat trip along the Goddess Stream which is a tributary of the Yangtze.  The photos don't really convey just how steep and high the sides are and they would have been even higher before the great dam was built. After the dam was built the water level rose by 75 metres and all in its way was flooded.  Whole towns had to be relocated and our guide yesterday told us that she used to live on the opposite bank but had no choice but to move across the river 10 years ago when the river levels rose. 

This is the view as we entered Wu Gorge which is the second of the three. Although it might look cold and people on deck have sweaters on, it was actually very warm but the breeze came from the boat moving along so quickly. 

Right now we are sat quietly drinking a beer having received our washing back from the Chinese laundry. What a service, 2 t-shirts and 2 pair of trousers for me and  a t-shirt, shirt and 2 pair of trousers for himself handed over at 8:30 this morning and handed back at 4pm. Same thing yesterday so right now we only have dirty smalls :-) Wonderful. 

Shortly we will be availing ourselves of the hospitality in the Executive Lounge. It's a pity our guide didn't inform us of the fact that we had free wine available from 5:30 to 6:30 and then half price cocktails from 6:30 to 7:30 followed by wine with our meal. We also get snacks and drinks all day long so we had no need to make a supermarket stop before coming on board the other day for wine, beer and snacks. Not sure now what we do with what we bought as we have another flight tomorrow.