Yangtze, Chong-Ching and Xian

Hey Everyone!!
We have a day off! We celebrated with a long awaited coffee and some pastry!

The Yangzte cruise was really nice, the water was a bit brown (actually a lot brown) but we got to relax on the deck in the sun and read books and listen to music which was a nice break. We saw the Three Gorges dam and it was amazing! When it is finished it will be the biggest dam in the world. They are going to flood 500 km of the river (so as to avoid a flood in the future) raising the water level by 35 meters! They are displacing millions of people and in the last three years or so have built so many new houses for them! The dam will be completed in about 3 years so most of the stuff we saw will be under water! We also went on another boat down a prettier part of the river and then got pulled by about 5 men (called 'trackers') upstream in a little wooden boat. They had lots pictures up of them doing it naked but they wore shorts for us! One of the oldest men (must have been about 70) really liked a girl from our tour and kept posing for her and then gave her a rock to take home. It was pretty cool, then we got to cruise down the rapids on the way back down.

After the river cruise we took a public bus to Chong Ching and had the best dinner of my life, again! It was a hot pot where you cooked everything in the middle of the table and got unlimited drinks and food for about $10 per head. I love China!

In the morning we went to the Zoo, it was terrible! Our aim was to see the Pandas but we took a walk around the zoo and it should not have been allowed to be open. The reptiles were kept in little concrete boxes with dirty glass windows, each animal got a similar sized tank and we saw a giant turtle that didn't even have room to turn around. There was a leopard kept in a small cage as well as bears and wolves. The bird aviary was infested with rats and we saw dead birds on the foot path. One rat ran straight past my foot and gave me a fright!! The panda enclosure was a bit nicer (thank God). We saw one Panda but by then we were a bit disgusted and gave up before any of the African animals.

Then it was another overnight sleeper train! It was enriched this time by a large group of men in the next cabin who felt the need to draw mucus from their throats and spit every 15 minutes...not uncommon on the streets of China!

Then we arrived in Xian at 4:30 this morning for our day off (and coffee and pastry....mmm)

Now is where I attempt to attach photos to all the posts, wish me luck!