What a relaxed day!

Early morning after breakfast we embarked small boats to ride up on of the side rivers – great views. The tour took about 2.5 hours and was absolutely worth it – actually would not have complained if we’d been able to stay a bit longer. Also had great company on the boat, including our guide, Yao, and the other group’s guide who taught us a Chinese folk song.

Before we started the tour we had the luxury of watching the trash boat being loaded a few decks below us:

After some time the trash boat was pretty loaded – unfortunately the swimming debris we saw from time to time on the river gives proof not all of the trash makes it to a dump site.

A few minutes later we took off for the tour. Hope you like the following pictures of the boat tour (as I wrote yesterday I still need to be a bit cautious on data consumption, more to come when in hotel Wifi)

The last picture above shows the “Moon Stone” – named after it’s curve

The following pics show a construction site along the river where a concrete pathway is built so the passage can be also be used during summer (for tourists walking) when the lower river doesn’t allow the boats to run all the way up to the return point of the tour.

Shortly after the construction site we did arrive at the end point of the tour:

Just a few more pics from the way back:

Due to the hot weather (31 degree Celsius) we skipped the afternoon tour and decided to just stay aboard our cruise ship and relax – it’s been actually so hot we had to leave the sun deck and hide below in the bar on the 5th deck. Spent the time reading and taking pictures from time to time., especially while driving through a pretty impressive canon with natural caves which in old times got used as natural grave yards

I am still not sure if the above is a house boat or a makeshift ferry.

Some passengers actually bought dried fish from this boat – the purchase and payment was done using a net on an extra-long pole.

Around 6pm we’re up on the sun deck enjoying the sunset over the Yangtze – beautiful view as you can see:

With the half moon over the Yangtze we’re calling it a day

Stay tuned for updates

/Chris