Ron and Amy
Go To China

 

Day 10

Yichang
The hydrofoil actually dropped us off a mile or two from the Yangtze Dam and about 45 minutes from Yichang by bus.The bus trip to Yichang was included in the Hydrofoil package and we had had a long day, so we climbed aboard. I did want to see the dam but it was already dark and it had gotten very foggy so we probably wouldn't have been able to see much anyway. When we arrived in Yichang, it was foggy and gray. We had a simple meal at a restaurant down the street from the bus station. The food was ridiculously cheap and yet they absolutely refused to take a tip or any extra money. Some guy who was hanging out by the bus station and spoke some English wanted us to see a hotel nearby and we were too tired to argue.
Yichang
more photos
The rooms were pretty dumpy but it was quiet and the plumbing worked so we took one. The hotel didn't even ask for a deposit, so that was one less thing we had to worry about.
After a good night's sleep and in the light of day, Yichang looked much better. The sun was shining and the sky was actually blue, which was a welcome change from the previous two days. It was a bit of work finding hot coffee but not impossible. Soon we were walking leisurely along the Yangtze and on to a market street and eventually a park. As everywhere else, there was a lot of new construction and other buildings that were freshly demolished.
Yichang Park
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I also saw a few billboards that I found interesting. One with the thumbs up for booze and another that looked like a vacation advertisement. It featured a line of naked men tugging on a long rope - not my idea of the ideal vacation getaway but hey, to each his own.
It probably would have been a good day to see the Yangtze Dam but neither of us were willing to stomach another bus ride right away. In fact, Amy just wanted to get on a plane and fly to Shanghai that day. Unfortunately, flights from Yichang to Shanghai were already booked solid for the next two days. The next best thing was take a bus to Wuhan (about 3 hours away) and fly from there. So we booked a flight from Wuhan the next day at 2 pm to Shanghai. This took awhile because even the travel agency wanted cash and we had a hard time finding an ATM that would give us any money.
Now all we had to do was get to Wuhan by bus. We got to the bus station at 5:30 pm and realized the last bus of the day was leaving at 6 pm. We ran back to our hotel as fast as we could, which was difficult because we couldn't remember exactly which street it was on. After running frantically up the wrong streets several times we figured out where it was. Our room was on the sixth floor - no elevator - and a hotel attendant had the key. We found her, got into our room, threw everything into our bags, ran back down the stairs. We assumed that check-out time was around noon and we had left our bags in our room till 5:45 so we figured they would want more money - maybe a whole extra night. As we ran through the hotel lobby, the woman at the front desk saw us but didn't look like she was going to ask us for anything so we just kept running. We ran through traffic and mobs of people and made it back to the station with ten minutes to spare and got our bus.


The Man Loves Booze!
   
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