We left Xi'an on a morning flight to Wuhan. We flew over some incredibly convoluted, fluted mountains. They looked as if they had been folded from a very thin cloth so that the folds were many and sharp.
Lunch in Wuhan was at a Tibetan themed restaurant which provided the weirdness of the day since Tibet is a very long way away from Wuhan. The restaurant though was rather jolly with prayer wheels outside and a large golden Buddha within.
After lunch we had a five hour coach drive to the dock at Yichen for our four night cruise along the Yangtze. Our route to Yichen was through the low lying valley of the Yangtze and the countryside was mostly made up of paddy fields, but not rice paddies. These paddies were either growing lotus for its root which is a food crop - we were to have it steamed for dinner with black fungus - or they were fish farms.
 |
| Drawing and comment from my diary! |
We also saw duck farms (definitely free-ranging ducks) and also a man ploughing with an ox (or more probably a water-buffalo) and another ploughing with a Rotavator. These farms are tiny and consist of only a field or two and aren't really viable any more. All the young people, we were told, leave for the cities where they can earn more money even doing very menial work like sweeping the streets.
 |
| Boarding Yangtze 2 in the dark |
After dinner in Yichen we finally boarded our boat at about 8pm and were very pleased indeed when we saw our beautiful upgraded room.
 |
| Our lovely berth |
 |
| The main dining room |
 |
| Bev in the reading room |
The rest of the boat was pretty swish too!
 |
| Me in the reading room |
No comments:
Post a Comment