China continued

Alrighty, we are all up and running again. If you haven't read the first part of China, it's under this post so scroll away.

Before we were rudely interrupted by the computer running out of battery, we were just starting on our cruise on the Yangtze River. We headed out from Chongqing for a 3 night cruise. Once upon a time I think our boat was top of the line luxury...not so much anymore. It was not terrible and was clean but was fairly run down. The big dents in the back of the boat were a bit of give away. While exploring the ship we very early on discovered what Chinese karaoke is all about. Can we say power ballads anyone? First song off the bat was My Heart Will Go On in chinese. Impressive stuff. The best part about the karaoke was that it was going all the time. Really loudly. And there was people dancing. It was very relaxing hanging out on the boat with nowhere really to go. Got plenty of reading done that's for sure. There was a grand total of 8 westerners on the boat. 3 of them seemed kinda creepy and the other two....were actually pretty cool. Let's just say there is no shame in rubbing a strange chinese man's head...

Day two on the boat we did a tour of the three little gorges. Very beautiful and impressive. We had to hop onto a smaller boat for about 6 hours to get through the smaller gorges. I think they were probably better than the big three gorges. That evening invloved much vodka consumption, card games, a little pole dancing, all set to the sounds of karaoke. Needless to say there was four fairly sick and sorry people the next morning....

And that pretty much finishes up China. From the time that we got off the boat it was all buses, trains and more buses to get to the border and into Vietnam. We caught a bus from the boat to a place called Yichang. From there another bus to Wuhan, where we were dumped on the side of the road not actually at a bus station round the corner from our hostel like we thought. A 40 odd minute cab ride got us there but it was not as simple as it should have been. From Wuhan we caught the overnight train ride from hell. We had the Chinese Symphony Snorers all around us and let's just say they sure are world class. Never heard snoring like that in my life. The louder the Ipods went the louder the snoring went... Arrived in Gui Lin, caught another train a few hours later to Nanning. From Nanning (capital of the dog hotpot) we caught a bus the next morning. 10 hours later, we were over Friendship pass, into Vietnam and safe and sound in Hanoi.

China was such an incredible place. Loved pretty much everything, the food was amazing, people were friendly, gorgeous scenery and, of course, pandas! There are still so many places we could go back and see. But if our first day in Hanoi is anything to go by, than Vietnam is going to be great to. Heading off for another boat tour tomorrow. This time to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. We'll fill you all in when we get back....

Two Kats and a Nat