Day 6

Jingzhou - Yangtze River Cruise

Date - 8 May

Weather - Sunny, warm

Accommodation - "Yangtze Gold Three" 

Today we started our four-day Yangtze River Cruise. 

We had a later start of 9.30am and we immediately headed to a new farming village on the outskirts of Jingzhou. We passed large canals which take their water from the Yangtze River and these feed into smaller canals for the mixed farms. The village was considered a rich village with small plots of beans, garlic, rape seed being grown in a traditional manner and chickens, ducks and pigs being kept very close to the houses. The village people didn't seem to mind us wandering past their tiled two-story homes or their farms and they seemed curious about us and took photos of us.

Jingzhou is an ancient walled city of 4.6 million people sitting by the Yangtze River. It is considered a very small city. Before lunch we headed to the city centre and walked along a section of the ancient wall and one of the six large, colourfully decorated watchtowers.

The views over the canal, gardens and the city were picturesque. The buildings in the inner city are only seven stories high and are about thirty years old. Any building over seven stories must have a lift. Our tasty round-table lunch was at a restaurant just outside the walled city. 

After lunch we went to the nearby Jingzhou Museum. The highlight was seeing the 2200 year old man who had been perfectly preserved due to the conditions in which he was placed. He was 60 years old when he died and he was on full display and looked nothing like the Egyptian dried mummies. 

The five-year revolution of the toilets is yet to reach the museum and there was much discussion about the long, tiled trench separated by partitions. At regular intervals a strong rush of water flushed the contents down the trench. It is what I remember of China from twenty-five years ago. 

From the museum it was a short drive to the Yangtze River to our boat, "Yangtze Gold Three". We were very excited to see the very wide, fast-flowing river and the large boat as it was much larger than we expected. It was chaotic in the boat's lobby when five bus loads of passengers (250) were being processed. 

We firstly made it to the reception counter to book in for the "Tribe of the Three Gorges Tour" (The Water Village) for tomorrow. We were then "processed" with our photo being taken. All the cabins start with the number 8 as it is considered lucky. Many were keen to buy their drinks vouchers. A bottle of Jacob's Creek costs $60 so our wine drought continues! 

Our good-sized cabin is on the fifth level so we have very good views over the river and countryside. All the cabins have French doors leading onto a balcony. Our bags were efficiently delivered to our room from the coach. Our cabin television has BBC and CNN news and a dedicated channel for all information on the cruise. 

We set sail at 4.30pm and passed a number Chinese washing their motor bikes and swimming and fishing in the Yangtze. We immediately felt how smooth and relaxing our four-day voyage would be. There were many long barges collecting gravel from the gravel pits on the side of the river. Little did we know that for the entire voyage that we would pass countless barges and it would be a very busy waterway. Everywhere you look in China there is construction.

We had a briefing at 6.20pm in the bar. This covered the four days being on the Yangtze. Carol, Henk and I were so excited we just had to have a cocktail.

Dinner was a buffet and it was very hectic. The quality and variety of food from which to choose was very good. 

 

Tomorrow is The Water Village in the morning and a coach trip in the afternoon to the Three Gorges Dam.