After a final breakfast we got off of the ship at YiChang. As we walked up the dock we saw these men carrying bags of watermelons down to the ship. And I don't mean bags with a couple of watermelons, I mean bags with a dozen watermelons. And these were not huge, straping young men either. Meanwhile, the porters would take the guests' bags four at a time on a pole across their shoulders. There were also overloaded carts that two people would try to keep from rolling down the steep grade. Usually the woman would be in back just sliding along with the cart, while the man barely managed to keep control of the thing. For my part, I attempted to stay to the side so as not to get crushed in case someone did lose control.

The street lights count down from "10" so that you know when they are going to change. At one intersection a man in uniform stood facing the traffic that had the green light from on top of a column in the center of the intersection. I have no real idea what he was doing. Many of the intersections have overhead walkways that merge above the center of the intersection in a big "X" instead of the box design you see in many other places.

It was really hot, and we got to a really nice hotel, which would be our base camp for the day. We left our bags in the bus and Ian, Anne, and I headed off toward the China Telecom Building to log onto the Internet, while Sally headed to the supermarket. We walked for about half a mile and found that all of the PCs in the China Telecom building were gone. All that remained were a lot of wires coming out of the floor. Not an auspicious start.

Undeterred by this setback, Ian stopped a couple of young men wearing pants and white dress shirts. They looked like they might be students, and Ian asked if they knew where to find Internet access by pointing to the word for Internet in a phrase book. They led us around for about 10-15 minutes, stopping occasionally to ask shopkeepers questions. Eventually, somewhat soaked in sweat, they led us to a small place with 16-20 PCs. It cost ¥2 per hour ($0.25). it was amazingly nice of them to go out of their way like that and we thanked them profusely.

Anne and I hung out there for about an hour and then headed back toward the hotel. On the way we saw a movie theatre and stopped in to see what was playing. As it was really hot, and we did not feel like doing much outside, or that involved walking too far, we decided we would see a movie. We saw a poster for Tomb Raider and matched the symbols on the poster to a listing of times and saw that there was a show at 2:20 p.m. that would get us out in time to get back to our hotel by 4:30 p.m. so that we could get to the night train to Xi'an. So Anne went up to the counter and pointed to me and I pointed to the movie and time we wanted. One of the cashiers came over and verified what we wanted and gave us two tickets, for ¥10 each.

We had some time to kill before the movie and we needed to get lunch and food for the train to Xi'an, so we headed up to the supermarket. There was a McDonalds next to the supermarket and I got a milkshake while Anne went up to the bathroom. It was about 100° outside and the milkshake tasted sooooo good. And the air conditioning wasn't bad either. We went to the supermarket and bought some food and I started to feel really faint, as if I were about to pass out. So, I went back to McDonalds and grabbed some food and downed some water, while Anne got some food from the backery.

I headed back to the hotel while Anne did some more shopping. It was really nice to get back to the air conditioned hotel and I headed over to the bathroom. These were the nicest bathrooms I saw in China. They had western-style toilets in nice stalls. Chinese toilets, like those in Japan, consist of a hole with a low block on either side and you squat over it. The nice ones are more of a trench with water running through it. Either way, they are not what I am accustomed to. The other english-speaking group was also at the hotel. They had taken a bus up to the dam and said that it was dam interesting. They were headed to a museum downtown.

Anne showed up and we headed off to the movie theatre. We went into the building marked "entrance" and up the stairs. We came to a long, dark hallway with chairs in it that could have been a waiting room. We headed up another flight of stairs to a similar hallway. There were old movie posters on the walls going up the stairs. So, we went up flight of stairs and there were a couple of doors with Chinese characters next to them and one was marked 1-4 and the other 5-8. In addition, there were a couple of doors with curtains on them. There was a man standing in the hall who seemed to be waiting for a movie to start, so Anne showed him our tickets and he pointed to one of the doors with the curtained windows.

At around 2:10 p.m. a young woman came up and unlocked the door and we went in. There was a screen in front and an LCD projector in the ceiling. To the right of the door as you came in there was a stereo system, a water cooler, and a cabinet. There were three rows of seats. The first row was single seats, the second row were double seats, like little couches (where we sat), and the third row had little two-seat boxes with curtains. The seats were quite comfortable and they had small round tables in front of them. It was warm in the room, but after a few minutes the woman turned on the air conditioner and it blew blissfully cool air upon us.

We sat there for about 5-10 minutes and then they brought over a cup of water mixed with some powder, a bag of dried fruit or nuts, and an apple iceicle. They put a VCD in and the movie started. It was not a very good movie, and the plot kinda stunk, but for $1.25 each it was an hour and a half of heaven. After the movie we headed back to the hotel and met up with Ian. Apparently, Sally had misplaced her purse somewhere. Fortunately, she still had her passport and traveler's checks. She had insurance, so the plan was to just report it when we arrived in Xi'an, as there was not much time to do it in YiChang.

The other group showed back up at the hotel shortly after we did. Apparently, the museum was not air conditioned, but the gift shop was. Odd indeed. At 4:30 p.m. we got on the bus and headed off to the train station. We went to the soft-sleeper waiting lounge, which was quite nice, and was locked with a huge iron gate. The other group showed up a little while later and we found out that we were all in the same car (10).

There are three classes of tickets: Soft Sleepers, Hard Sleepers, and Hard Seats. The Soft Sleepers consisted of private rooms (eight to a car) with dual bunk beds on each side. The beds were pretty comfortable, and there was a small table, a little trash can, and two thermoses of hot water. There was room for luggae under the lower bunks and above the corridor at the head or foot of the upper bunk. The four of us shared a cabin.

The hard sleepers had triple bunks and no wals between bunks and corridor. I did not see any of the hard seats, but I can't imagine they were a pleasant way to spend the nineteen-hour trip. We passed the time with "pass the pigs," first with Ian, Anne, myself, and Jane, a Scotish woman with the other tour group. Later, Seth and Ian (two of the kids), and Seth's father Dave. We ate our snacks for dinner. There was a constant flow of people up and down the aisle selling food and drinks.

Each car has a Chinese-style toilet on each end, and a washroom with a sink. The bathrooms, and the doors between cars were locked each time we entered a station. The rationale being somewhat elusive. It was particularly annoying when I had to go to the bathroom at 4:00 a.m. and we pulled into a station and all of the bathrooms were locked. This, after is took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to open the door to our cabin. Both Anne and I got up at around 6:40 a.m. to go to the bathroom and after a bit of effort with the cabin door, got out. I went first and just after Anne went in we stopped at another station and they checked the door while she was in the bathroom. Fortunately, they did not lock her in.

When you board the train a woman collects your ticket and gives you a plastic or metal tab with your bunk number on it. You must surrender this tab when you get off of the train in order to get your ticket back. According to Ian, you do not want to lose either the tab or your ticket.

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