04: Flight to Yichang for Yangtze Cruise

Well we made it in time for the silly o’clock coach, all clutching our hotel packed breakfasts, so these were indeed our first ever genuine Chinese take-aways...!!! There were very long queues at the airport but it was all quite civilised and everyone made it in time before we took off... just!!! Our plane for this flight was a sister airline Shanghai Airways Boeing 737, and it had certainly seen better days, but we made it safe and sound; and even got a breakfast of sorts of a cheese and

ham roll with a cold drink and warm coffee chaser.

Less than two hours later we’re disembarking at Yichang Airport, and it’s overcast, hot and humid here. The most amazing thing as soon as we left the plane was the amazingly strong aroma of jasmine in the air, you were even aware of it inside the Arrivals Lounge. Transfer through the airport was swift and easy and in no time at all Max is directing us to our coach for the day. It’s seen many a mile more than our first one but it has high level seating for better views of the scenery, and better still the front two pair of seats were even higher and Elaine and I managed to bag ourselves a pair!

This part of our trip used to be by road and took well over six hours, so as we’d barely taken a third of that to get this far we

had an additional visit to the Yichang Museum. Unexpectedly this turned out to be very interesting as it was quite a small place but held mostly ancient artefacts that were rescued from the surrounding areas when the Three Gorges Dam flooded the valley. The resident English speaking guide wasn’t on site so we had the Chinese one guide us round with Max translating for us as we wound our way through the displays.

Now, it’s been a while since we had that roll on the plane, so we’re all pleased to hear that the next stop is to a nearby restaurant for today’s lunch. As we drove around to it we noticed the obvious difference here to the big city we’d just left, there were hardly any English translations on the street and shop signs now that we were in a far more rural area. The restaurant choice was excellent, best choice of courses so

far... and no chicken heads or feet in the soup...!!!

Just as we were all finishing it became very dark outside and the heavens opened in a big way, this was one serious rain storm that Max was not prepared to take us out in, so we just sat around our tables chatting while waiting for the storm to abate. Now this created a bit of a dilemma as we originally had a post lunch choice of either riverside walk or shopping mall visit, so the weather sort of put the kibosh on that idea. Someone asked Max if we couldn’t head off early to the cruise boat and he said he’d call the captain to see if this was possible. And... bingo... we could make our way there and they would do their best to get all our rooms ready ahead of time.

It was an interesting trip of an hour or so, it was still raining,

the roads were not up to the quality of Shanghai and the driving was diabolical to say the least! This was never more obvious than when we got to the wharf, the road works were unbelievable, and Max told us that this work had already been going on for over two years.

The good news though was that we could all book into our cabins... after the info share meeting with our cruise guide Herbert. We, and a number of others, had upgraded to the Deluxe Suite, giving us a much bigger room with longer balcony, as well as, importantly, our own smaller dining room away from the crushing meal time hordes. Because of all this we were first to board the MS Yangtze Gold II, way ahead of any other passengers, giving us plenty of time to get settled in and take some nice photos with no one else around. There

was about an hour and a half before dinner, so after booking herself a double massage for tomorrow, Elaine had a quick swim then some R&R in the cabin ahead of getting dressed up for our first Yangtze River Cruise dining experience.

Now, there is a two tier buffet restaurant situation on board, those passengers in Standard Rooms take their meals in the large main restaurant on Deck 2 which has over forty tables with ten diners per table; while the upgraded Executive Stateroom passengers, including us, have their meals in the much smaller restaurant on Deck 5 with only ten tables of ten diners per table. This avoids the apparent “bun fight” that ensues with the Chinese diners (who don’t do queuing) while selecting their buffet choices in the much busier main restaurant. Both restaurant start times are staggered by

fifteen minutes, and this is divided by each deck level, to reduce the initial rush to the buffet. Except that is for tonight, when we all have dinner served to us in the main restaurant, this is mainly due to the fact that the passenger arrival times are widely spread over at least six to seven hours, dependant on how they’re travelling and where from!

This turned out to be a very successful meal, as our group arrived ahead of time there were only a few other tables being served at our sitting and the food was easily the best and most plentiful that we’ve enjoyed so far, and there was a desert choice included for the very first time... liking this...!!! After dinner we had a leisurely coffee in the forward bar with a few of our tour buddies before retiring to our cabin to relax a little before getting our heads down to sleep.