06: Yangtze River Cruise, Day 3

Because all passengers are going on the early morning Shennong River excursion today we are gently woken with softly lilting Chinese music at 06:45, though Elaine and I were already awake before it even started. We’re the first in to breakfast as the restaurant doors opened, where there are a few variations to the choices we were served yesterday, including little chicken sausages (little sausages not chickens!) that looked a bit weird being white but actually tasted quite nice. The few Canadians and Americans on board should be happy again as on both mornings we’ve had nice

crispy streaky bacon... always a winner with us too...!!!

With little commotion everyone is loaded onto a series of smaller vessels that held about eighty passengers each, which then set sail at intervals across the Yangtze and chugged our way along the very scenic Shennong River. Our local guide was a young Chinese girl, who spoke excellent self taught English, and she pointed out all the various points of interest along the way. Turns out she also had the sweetest of singing voices as she sang a little song for us to join in with as she got to a chorus that she’d taught us earlier. The trip took just over two hours and returned us to the mother ship in plenty of time for lunch. Good trip but shame it was still so overcast.

Again there were variations in our lunch over yesterday’s, and

there was general satisfaction with the selection on offer. Certainly no complaints from us... yet...!!! Talk around the table got on to the subject of holidays and where we’d all still like to go, Lynne and her daughter Amber were working their way through the modern Severn Wonders of the World, which I think got Elaine and I thinking a bit about where to go next, one couple liked Turkey and were going again later in the year, we liked that idea, especially after they explained about the historic area known as Cappadocia. Crete was mentioned a few times, so got us thinking about that again too. We were so involved in the discussion that they had to turf us out of the restaurant as we’d overstayed our welcome time wise! No problem, we just continued it in the rather plush sitting room next door before going up to the top deck for Herbert to talk us through the next two main gorges as we continued with

our cruising up the Yangtze towards Feng Jie for the next stop over. Hardly anyone wanted to do the additional excursion this afternoon so most slid away to the privacy of their cabins for a bit of a siesta... including us!

Dinner time was soon upon us, and we had to look our best this evening, as tonight was Cabaret Night and Max had made us promise to all do a turn together, which he suggested to be Queen’s “We Will Rock You”... a good idea at the time, but fortunately was changed at the last moment before we went on! Dinner was again very good, with more new options and desserts, though I have to say that even the sweetest looking of their sweets were barely sweet at all... nice though!

Ladies & Gentlemen, it’s Cabaret time... First up were some of

the crew performing a traditional costume dance with expanding and contracting paper lanterns... you had to be there! We were quite shocked to then hear that the Mercury Group were on next... panic... fortunately Elizabeth had taken it upon herself to get Max to change the song for us, and chose the Hokey Cokey in its place. This was a very good call because had we done the Queen number we’d have all been standing still with our back to the audience while reading the karaoke screen, instead we were able to stand in the traditional Hokey Cokey circle and really go for it, which earned us a huge ovation from the mainly Chinese audience. We were also entertained by the crew doing a Tai Chi demonstration dance, young crew members parading in five separate dynasties of Chinese costume, a young Chinese woman singing a lovely Chinese karaoke ballad, three Chinese

ladies doing a funny dance routine, the compare reciting an ancient Chinese poem from memory... but no other passengers performed for us! Where were the Canadians, Americans, Austrians, Swiss or the Australians... bad show you guys...!!! Although we thought the evening would be dire, it was actually really good fun and a nice bonding session for the passengers, especially between us and the multitude of Chinese on board!

It all finished around ten o’clock and as soon as the lights went down some of the crew and the Mercury bunch were giving it large on the dance floor, and within minutes all but three of the Chinese had simply disappeared and all that were left were the Mercury crowd, we did Max proud so I hope he’s grateful in the morning. Time for bed said Zebedee...