Back again!! Well the surprise we woke up to was where we had docked over night!! It was still raining hard and there was a fog as thick as pea soup, as they say. Mind you that could be pollution , as China is well known for it. They are trying tho and have introduced an electric moped, which every one runs an extension cable from the house to the bike out side, IN ALL WEATHERS!!!!. Anyway back to the "great landing". We were a few 100 mt away from the bank, so we walked, with our luggage across at least 4 floating "bridge" things, with no sides to stop us falling in the Yangtze, they were metal wet and very slippery. ( ever seen its a knock out !!!) once over the landing bridges we preceded to climb up the wet muddy banks, where some kind sole had thought that pieces of plywood would help, whereas they just became soggy, wet and just as slippery! when we made it to the top of the bank,we then had a climb of at least 75 steps. I don't do steps very well at the best of times, and by the time I got to the top, there was only one family behind, they had a small baby and two oldie who were in their 70s, they struggled!!!! ( when they got on the bus the mum fed the baby solidly for two hours, which brought on projectal vomiting, mum who was still not happy about the muddy climb, took the worst,and world war 3 broke out with the husband, as he was sat in the front, 3 rows down, and she was covered in sick, we laughed) any way we all made it to the bus without taking a dip!! We then had a two hour drive to meet up at our original destination and the new driver to take us to the hotel. The next day was the Pandas. This was nothing like a zoo, thank goodness. It was a breeding centre famouse for trying to stop the pandas from disappearing. It was a lovely place, they had loads of room to wander, to climb or just to lay about, which is what they do best to conserve energy, (don't know what they are conserving it for, it's not like they make use of it!!!) they were so cuteeee I fell in love with each one, my camera was steaming at the number of photos I took. I could have stayed for hours just watching them eat and sleep, sleep and eat. The rest of they day was free so we made the most of it and sleeped ourselves. The next day we flew to Hangzuo to see the famouse west lake. We tried to cycle around but Bev was too unsteady and a large part was on the road with cars etc, so we told the others to go on and we just poodles around one end of the lake, watching the world go buy, eating ice cream and drinking cold coke. We loved it. Our final journey was again by train to shanghai arriving early pm where we just wandered and took in the sights. Shanghai is a very modern city, with lots of very impressive buildings. Of course there is also the famouse Peace Hotel where it is said that Charlie Chaplin visited with several different mistresses, all at different times of course. And that was the end of China. The next day we flew back to Hong Kong for our connection to Vietnam. China was definatly a different country and so huge!! I have many lasting memories. Good ones like the villages, the lovely people,, who often came to my rescue with Bev, the gorges, the Pandas and the vastness of the country. A country full of contradictions. I will also take the bad memories, the noise, the smell, the spitting and the toilets, as Luke said you have to take the rough with the smooth. But my final memory will be as I looked back at that dirty rushing river, and thought I must have a screw loose to be doing this at my age. So would I do it again, yes but I would have to be at least 30 years younger.