Day 18 (20-3-2009) - Trouble trouble

It was a very rushed morning, having to board our coach at 7.00 am in the morning. We woke up at around 5am, did some last minute preparation, kept our laptops at the girls’ dorm and we were finally ready to set off on our 3 day trip.

Long bus rides are always pleasant as far as I am concerned. Accompanied with my trusty Ipod as always, I would listen to slow and simple songs while looking on as the landscape passes me by. This I believe is my secret hobby.

As I started to doze off, from one long blink to the other, I witnessed how modern buildings turn into flower fields, then back to buildings, and then once again turn into beautiful fields of lime green. I never really went about asking what flower that was; I just know it filled my eyes, for the best part of the journey

Our first destination was the city of Jing Zhou. Jing Zhou is bordered by the exact same walls that protected it from enemies in ancient times. So just being there, allows you to relive the history and let your imagination run wild. Taking photos at a place like this is completely necessary.

After lunch, we were in for another long ride to the city of Yichang. Yichang is where we will board our cruise and leave for the Three Gorges.

What we did not expect, was that there was going to be trouble at the jetty. Apparently, there was a dispute between the tourism company for our cruise, and the government tourism body. The company said that it demanded an interest for letting everyone use the jetty which they own, while the government probably thought otherwise. We had to patiently wait for 2 hours in total. Things got mad when people started throwing fists at each other, and the situation called for the police to be there.

In Singapore, I do not think any tourism company would dare go against a government body.

At this point, we were about to go for our contingency plan; leave the jetty, go to another one and board another cruise, which is actually about half a star better than our current one. With a drizzle pouring on us and as the evening got colder, this was really not a bad change of plans.

But, it was not meant to be as not long after that, they settled the dispute and we finally boarded the cruise.

I think that the rooms are not bad at all. We have an LCD TV, 2 very comfortable beds and a seated toilet (a rarity in China). This is all that I need to survive for 3 days. I am just disappointed with the facilities that are available to us. There are only 3 things: A mah-jong room, a KTV, and a cyber cafe. It does sound okay, but, consider this: I do not play mah-jong, the KTV was fully booked for all 3 days and the cyber cafe was down.

I guess it’s all up to us to entertain ourselves during our free time. Hope this turns out to be as fun as I hope it would be.