Having got over our train journey, the village we stayed at was amazing, this country is definatly one of contrasts. The people seem to live poorly, all in one room at the back of the shop. However they all have mobiles,tv, fridges, freezers, and yet each morning the women go down to the river to do the back breaking job of washing the clothes. Thats why all the towels are grey!!!!The houses are of the old style, on stilts. The whole place comes alive at night, but we were the only Europeans there. (All week it was the same until we got to Chengdu and then even we were surprised to see other "white" people.) While staying here we visited a mountain village which was amazing,we walked through to the fields behind and after a tough walk we came across a wonderful waterfall and small lake. While we were on one of our days out we stoped for petrol in a brand new station. They were just opening the shop, they had two photographers hungry to take pictures but had noone to open the store!! So they asked us if we would mind posing for the camera, well being an avide shopper how could we say no, bev said i was a natural!!!! They wanted to give us loads of goods to take away, but knowing we would have to carry it we said no, but we still came away with a few things each, i had a jar of manderins of all things and an iced coffe. I am adding to the cv "avaliable for supermarket openings as seen on chinesse bill boards!" the next day We boarded another train to get to the Yangtze river for our boat cruise, again we were the only Europeans. The Chinese were surprised that we ate every thing the same as them and did all the same trips, they were very friendly, to start just nodding, then asking questions. They loved it when we learned how to play marjone, and stood behind us itching to help, so to keep them happy we asked for help now and again. I loved the game, we only learnt the basics but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, before we knew it we had been playing for 5 hours!! It was dark out side so we weren't missing anything!!!. This river trip was awesome, every corner was a new view. We took trips out twice, once to see an amazing dam and locks that we actually went through that night, Bev loved it. We also took about trip through a smaller gorge that ended with a walk. This was fantastic, I loved the size of it, and it was just what I expected from the trip. We were sorry to be finishing the trip but as the weather turned nasty and wet the views became hazy. We docked early, not where we should have been, which moment the next morning a big surprise was waiting for us!!!! See you tomorrow.