Mar 20, 2010

Today I woke up at 5.50am as Miss Neo told us that we need to assemble at 6.30am at level 2 to have our breakfast. The sound system went off at 6.20am to inform us that breakfast is ready and we were to head down to the dining area to have our breakfast. I woke up first and wash up before waking Soon Ling up. We went to knock doors of the others and together, we went down to have breakfast. The guys were late so we had to wait for them to arrive before we can start eating. The dishes for breakfast are not to our liking. It was very blend and we were served plain porridge, plain white buns, soya milk and a hardboiled egg each. It was very different from what I normally have for breakfast so I did not really have a filling breakfast. We went off the cruise after breakfast and went to 白帝城 to look around. We took a short 5mins bus ride to a temple where a monk prayed for us and we entered a gate to白帝城. Professional photographers were there to help us take photos for free and we are allowed to collect a free small copy of the photo. We climbed a long flight of stairs to officially reach the main gate of 白帝城. It was difficult climbing up the flight of stairs as it was cold and I find it difficult to breathe. We were out of breath even though we are young chaps who are supposed to be fit. Those who could not climb up the stairs by themselves are offered a choice of being carried up manually by men using an ancient method of tying a chair to 2 bamboo sticks. It cost a fee which is around RMB$40 I think. We walked around and returned to the ship at 9.20am. We were taken to view the three gorges and all of us crowd on the uppermost deck to see it. The scenery was breathtaking and I’m fascinated by the formation of the gorges. After that, we had lunch on the cruise and the dishes were edible and quite to our liking. After lunch, we had a break where everyone returned to their rooms till 3 plus 4 and we left our cruise to take a smaller ship to take a wooden like sampan boat the travel down the 神农溪. The boat is manually steered by the men on the boat. They had to keep paddling to bring us to our destination and I think it takes great effort and strength as I can hear their heavy panting breathing as I’m seating in front of them. Miss Neo told us that the government paid them RMB$600 per month for keeping such heritage alive. Many of them bought the pebbles the men sold to give them extra revenue. We returned to our ship for the day and had dinner. The dishes were quite similar to what we had for lunch. We informed that we are heading to the dam, 大坝 so we stayed up till 12plus which is stated to the time we arrived at the gate of the dam. However, we stood outside in the cold till 1plus and we still have not entered the dam so I decide to head back to our rooms to sleep. Besides, it is so dark outside for us to see clearly.