From Cruise ship to Yichang

This story continues from my last post about the Zhuge Liang Memorial Temple at Fengjie City. After that very interesting visit which ended at night, we returned to the Cruise ship. Just before boarding the ship at the quayside, I spotted these baskets of dried shrimps laid out by the local fishermen and their folks. These "gragok" were all harvested from the Yangtze region.

They looked very tempting to me! But buying it would be out of the question for travellers like us. Today, it is not easy to get these things on board a plane if they are not properly sealed.

On board our last night on the ship, we decided to skip the amateurish performance by the ship's staff/crew

in the nightclub. I had gone there to have a look and concluded that it was exactly that. Persons who attended were expected to tip or donate for the "show".

D2 and I went to the upper deck to enjoy the night breeze and chat with other fellow travellers who also skipped the show.

The next morning, Sunday 1st June 2008, we awoke at 6 am as breakfast was at 6.30 am. The food was rather plain and I decided to just eat one hardboiled egg.

While waiting for our ship to berth at Yichang port, we had time to sit down for one last photo of the interior of this ship.

Someone commented..."you both look like the the emperor and empress of China ! " Haha...if that was true why did the ship only fed me a hardboiled egg?

The 3 of us, D2, me and our guide Shirley boarded the tour bus together with other travellers for the journey to Yichang City Centre. When we arrived at the outskirts of the city in the early morning, our bus as well as all other vehicles, were not allowed to proceed further. Why? What happened? We needed to get into the city centre to board our Yichang to Wuhan coach. But the police and military had cordoned off the entire city. Unknown to us, that day was the day the OLYMPIC TORCH was passing through the city of Yichang!

And there were different ceremonies taking place at strategic locations. The event was covered "Live" too by the TV and mass media.

At first, we were so excited by all the large crowds that gathered by the roadside....knowing that something big was brewing.

I took this snapshot from inside our bus ( photo left ).

Then suddenly at the next road junction all the vehicles were signalled to pull over and park. Our driver said to us," Your journey ends here. Cannot move any more. All must go down!"

What a terrible fix we were all in! We were shooed off the bus...everyone including the "ang mohs"( caucasians) who were fuming mad. They just didn't know what to do next. Like us, they too needed to reconnect their land transport arrangements but we were far away from the city center still. And we still had our luggage with us. Fortunately, unk Dicko being a seasoned traveller and adventurer travelled light. D2 followed my example. Just one light bag each! I saw others pulling and dragging their luggage here and there, unsure of where to go or what to do next.

What about us? Find out in next post tomorrow.