Rollin' Down the Yangtze

The last few days have been uneventful in a bizarre sort of way. As the title of this post indicates, we are rollin' down the Yangtze River in China. It is the third longest river in the world and home to the highly controversial construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Jero and I are on a cruise boat full of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tourists. We think there may be one other white person on board, but this is an unconfirmed sighting.

Given our current location (cruise boat on the river, somewhere between Yichang and Chongquin, southeast China) and the current ratio of Asians to us, there have been some communication difficulties. For instance, upon waking up this morning to absolute silence and stillness, we realized that our ship had docked and furthermore, that none of its occupants were to be found. Nary a crew member, nary a guest. Just us. This was was not a welcome surprise. What were we to do? We sat. No engines meant no power, so we sat and sweat, our confusion growing by the minute. Why would they leave us on the boat? A hot, sweltering, cruise boat in the middle of the Yangtze?!! Did I mention the boat was padlocked? My thoughts were growing increasingly dramatic and the words "floating tomb" began to take on special significance. The Yangtze River in August is not a place that you really want to spend large amounts of time on or near. It is rainy season in this part of China, and for some reason, we did not make this connection in our heads when booking the cruise. It rained this morning, the river was muddy and gross, and we were locked in the boat. To compound our misery, we were hungry and there was clearly not going to be anybody around to make and/or sell us any meals. We became quite morose. We can't even go back to sleep because our bunk room has turned into a veritable sauna. Thank goodness for Jero's iPod. No time like the present to start watching whole seasons of Lost. Everyone rejoined the boat just after lunch, and we still have no idea where everyone went or why. However, we do know that no one was concerned about the welfare of the two Americans.

Speaking of sleep, we are sharing the room with a family of three. I am not sure of their exact ethnicity, I just know that they do not understand us, and we surely do not understand them. The three of them share a set of bunk beds. The father gets his own bed, and it only takes an hour into our first slumber party together to understand why. The man snores. It is not just a soft, endearing snore though. No, somewhere there is a giant wildebeest crying out for help. As I lay awake every night after being awakened by these inconceivable sounds coming from this man's throat, I resigned myself to a sleepless night. I lay there and tried to think how I would describe his snores to someone, and I finally arrived at the conclusion that if I knew what a wildebeest giving birth sounded like, then that would be it.

On a happier, less cranky and sleep-deprived note, the scenery surrounding this mighty river is amazing. The towering cliffs, the terraced hillsides, and the velvety mist floating in between, more than make up for any of our current inconveniences. So what, we didn't get the party cruise boat we thought we were. Or any rest at night. Or any fun at all, for that matter. We have beautiful scenery, each other to amuse, and we are in China!