Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 56 - Monday July 4th 2016 - Cruising the Yangtze River, China

We walked back through a garden and a mural that told the story of the pagoda, more battles fought to save a city, more lives lost and ultimately back to the ship the way we came. It was absolutely boiling out here and we both looked like we had been for a shower in our clothes so as soon as we got back on board we had to go to the room and change clothes.

It was also time for the captain’s reception, a party planned for the guests on board to meet the captain and the crew of our ship. We were greeted with a line of men and women in their white suits complete with gold stripes, very American looking with only the captain wearing the gold braid hat. We were given glasses of sparkling Chinese wine (it tasted like fizzy apple juice to us) and the after a few introductions of each of the crew and a round of toasts the captain came around everyone to have his picture taken with you, all available to purchase from the gift shop afterwards. They had laid on a small buffet as well and the crew danced and really tried to get the atmosphere lifted from cruise ship to Butlin’s holiday camp.

They danced the Macarena complete with hand movements and line dancing, we even had a rendition of the birdy song with all the moves, the Chinese seemed to love it! Last but by no means least it was time for the conga around the bar and disco area of deck five…they were really going for it.

Post captains party it was time for the official all ashore to the pagoda party and we were glad as I said earlier that having seen it and explored it we would not be getting off the boat again. Instead we retreated to the room with me writing up the blog and Trev tuned into his iPad watching Bergerac and the Les Mis anniversary concert!

Time soon passed down in the cabin and we watched all the chaos and commotion down on the floating pontoons and the other people on board left and came back to the boat, passing all the market stalls, bargaining with the local traders for t-shirts, silk scarves and other Chinese wear.

It was now time for dinner (yes already). One thing that we have learnt on this cruise ship is that the Chinese seem to like to go to bed early and that means that they like to be up early too. We had witnessed this on the Ovation as well, the Chinese going to bed early, what this means though is that their feed me clock is a lot earlier than ours and by the time we got to the restaurant all the Chinese had been and gone. We were the last at the table but we said a few hellos and how was your day? It seemed everyone agreed that we had been lucky to go off and do the pagoda on our own and walk the suspension bridge without it rocking all over the place, good call.

Dinner was not that great to be honest. Why do the Chinese eat such fatty cuts of meat? We both went for the pork stir-fry as it looked the most appetising but the pork was more fat of the pork rather than the meat and we just moved a lot of it around the plate. We made up for it by eating a plate full of cake and some bread and butter. The other good thing was the wine, we had a bottle of merlot to share between us and everything tastes better with wine and that where we got most of our calorie intake from.

After dinner it was the crew show, our entertainment for the evening. The upstairs bar and disco area had been turned into a makeshift theatre space with all the chairs facing toward the dancefloor. The show was a journey down the Yangtze, all the different cultures and tribes represented in local dance and costume, oh and one game of musical chairs for the kids. It was actually really good, really different and what was a great thing to witness was the Chinese letting their hair down and really enjoying themselves (none of the Chinese were drinking).

The crew really had their choreography down to a tee, they have probably been doing this same show for years but it was the costumes that make it. They wore different silks, large flapping arms, huge dramatic headdresses and really wavy movements showing off the shape of the many costume changes. Most of the dances seem to be based around boy meets girl romances with there always being central characters with the biggest headdress or most elaborate costume. We had a waiter who could do a bit of magic complete with a dove from up the sleeve and boxes that’s appeared out of empty paper bags. As I said it was all very entertaining but parts of it verged on village hall type entertainment.

The audience had all been given plastic hand clappers to make more noise and show their appreciation to the crew and the Chinese seemed to think these were great, along with a large table of aussies. It had certainly passed the evenings time and was something very different but as soon as the show was over the bar emptied of every single Chinese person, it was just us and the Australians left.

We had a few gin and tonics and Trev had a B52 for a nightcap and we went back to the cabin for bed hoping that the Chinese would not wake us up again at the crack of dawn.