Today Brian got his third and final post-monkey bite shot. While this is cause for celebration, we actually decided to celebrate after his second shot just in case he didn't make it (a lot could've happened in the two weeks between vaccinations!). After traveling to a different city every other day for the past four weeks, we figured a 3 day cruise on the world's third longest river, the Yangtze, would be a treat. Although we had the option to take an international liner that catered to westerners, we opted for the Chinese cruise knowing that this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity...but not really knowing what to expect.
On October 24th, the good folks at Yangtze River Hostel took us to the docks in Chongqing where we quickly realized it was called the Chinese cruise because only Chinese people took it and the guides only spoke Chinese. From there, we hopped on buses with 200 of our newest and soon to be closest Chinese friends and drove for four hours to another pier where we finally got to board our boat.
Our time on & off board over the next few days wasn't without challenges (we ran out of hot water by 8am the first day and we got up close & personal with Three Gorges Dam security after misunderstanding our guide's instructions to leave pocketknives on the tour bus), but, as you can see below, the good far outweighed the bad.
Our first-class cabin came equipped with the ever important hot water thermos. The cruise was BYOM (bring your own meals) and we brought the Chinese version of cup-o-noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so we grew quite fond of our blue Mickey Mouse thermos.
Everyone else stood on the top deck to see one of the gorges, but Brian got to sit! (He actually sat so as to not block the view.)
Oh, you know, just drifting down the third longest river in the world!
Showing off my tags that answered everyone's questions about whether we were with the right cruise.
Brian was as much of a tourist attraction as the world's biggest dam.
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