Up the Yangzte, Hang Zhou, Su Zhow and Shanghai

After spending an evening in Chunking, a heavily industrialized city, where we visit is superstore (like Macy's) with a huge assortment of everything (and we cannot decipher anything), we go down to the Yangtze river and take our ship for a three day river cruise. We have a nice cabin with a deck in a fairly large ship (500 passengers). Cruising the river is relaxing, serenely moving along the China of centuries. Our first stop is Feng Du where we visit the 'Snow Jade' caves and see a huge number of white, green and alabaster stalactites and stalagmites, formed over thousands of years.

We steam past the Qitang and Wu gorges to a small tributary where we transfer to rowing boats (punters) and go up the Shen Dong river famous for its cliffside vertical hanging coffins, an absolutely bizarre custom of the Tu Ja minority community - although why and how they did this is a mystery. Our guide is Miao- Miao (pronounced Meow-Meow) a Tu Ja who sings a duet with the oarsman - one of my tour highlights - punting along the bottom of a wildness ravine. The Tu Ja cry for 15 days before a marriage and sing and dance for 3 days after a death - just pause and think about the profound wisdom of that tradition!

At night we descent 2000m through 5 locks at the huge Three river gorge dam (yes the one that displaced over a million peasants) and spend a few hours at the dam site, before motoring to Wuhan another heavily industrialized city, stopping on the way to visit a Kindergarten school sponsored by Sinorama the tour company. Many adorable Chinese babies sing and dance for us, and Ellen spends time with a teacher and children - nothing is cutier that little Chinese boys and girls

Another domestic flight to Hang Zhou (again very efficient and punctual) where we visit a 1000 year old pagoda (one of the few not destroyed) built to prevent floods (superstition), cruise a lovely lake and visit a green tea garden where we learn the many medicinal properties of green tea. We motor up to Wu-Zhou the 'Venice of China' and explore the city along its many water canals. After stopping Su Zhou famous for its silk, and learning how silk is made and buying a few souvenirs, we motor to Shanghai. - a huge and imposing city (20 million population and 6 million daily subway riders!). Shanghai is the site of Expo 2010, a huge exhibition site - we see the Shanghai museum, explore the city by night and see an incredible show of Chinese acrobats -definitely one of the highlights of the trip - absolutely dazzling and performed to perfection. We end our stay with a visit to old Shanghai, teaming with people and stuff

All through the tour we have eaten food served on a lazy suzy, ten or so dishes, of pork, chicken, beef and some very tasty Chinese vegetables, passed around and eaten with chopsticks (with a fork as backup) - served one free glass of beer, soda or water (sometimes no free water). We have hung out with Elizabeth and John and Alex and Ann - all English speaking Canadians (amidst Chinese and French Canadians) - and their companionship has enhanced the trip. I have gained 5 lhs (alright about 2.2 kg for the rest of the world !)

And so on to Hong Kong, after a fortnight in a formidable (not forbidding) most impressive China