The boat left at 9 a.m. Mr. Tang had arranged transportation to the boat, this arrangement consisted of telling us that it was only 600 meters to walk. Not that I am a good judge of distances, but it certainly seemed longer to me. Heavy with a backpack, a daypack and plastic bags with groceries. A carrier was called to carry the luggage for two of the ladies in the group who weren’t able to carry their luggage that far. The poor guy was stopped at the door, and wasn’t allowed in the 5 steps inside to get the bags. He had to wait by the entrance while the bellboy brought the bags. Leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Then we plowed our way through the morning traffic. It was clouded, but it looked like there was a sun behind there somewhere. So it was probably smog and not clouds. The boat was what could be expected, at least there was no water buffaloes in the toilet (actually, that part was a bit of a disappointment). We didn’t get cabins out towards the river, but towards a dreary hallway. The rooms are dirty and ugly, there is a sink there with water straight from the river (brown and sandy). I will never complain about the cabins in the ferry going from Norway to Denmark ever again! But the worst thing about it is that we probably have the best bloody rooms in the whole boat. Most Chinese share with other Chinese, and those who can’t afford a bed find some space for themselves and their families on the floor. There is a lot of garbage in the water, and there are powerful whirls many places.

In the beginning the landscape we sailed through was very industrialised, and we didn’t see far ahead because of the smog. There was a special room for us first class passengers, with a deck out front, with a perfect view to the landscape we were sailing through. We brought chairs from the room and sat out there, reading or looking at the landscape gliding by. Eventually the landscape turned greener and the fog lifted, but regularly you could see factories and tall pipes with dark smoke coming out, not to mention how polluting a lot of the boats seemed. It was OK to sit out there to begin with, feel the warmth from the sun and the wind in your hair, but it got pretty boring after a while. It turned out to be a very long day. 

A few Chinese were out on the deck with us. It is always weird watching the Chinese tourists take pictures of each other in front of every interesting peace of scenery everywhere you go. From what I understand they find a picture with no people in it very boring. On this boat a woman was actually changing outfits several times to pose for the pictures. According to Kath the Chinese have until recently not had much vacation, 3 days at New Year and other than that just a few isolated days. But now they have two weeks each year. This is the authorities way of making them travel and spend their money instead of saving it.