Fenghuang

Firstly my apologies to all those who have emailed and i have not given a lengthy response. We have found access to the internet is intermittent and i spend much of my spare time booking accomodation.Also to those who have aol accounts for some reason the mail is not being delivered.We have so much to tell i wish i had more time. We took a chinese passenger/tourist boat to see what they consider to be worthwhile doing instead of a posh cruise. However the chinese boats were pretty basic and the standard cabin would make most people shudder to think what third class would be like. Western style toilets are extremely rare but it doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest. The norm is to have a shower directly above the sqwat toilet and it feeds most likely directly into the street judging by the smell. The scenery at points along the YangTze was spectacular but unfortunatly the chinese have little respect for this awesome river as they persistantly throw their rubbish in the water from the boat when there were facilities to dispose of it on board. We ate on the boat, i did look at the kitchen before hand but didn't tell anyone as they probably ouldn't have touched anything otherwise. The Food hygiene and health and safety culture hasn't yet affected China.

I booked a hotel in yichang end of the cruise as we were all in need of a shower after three days!! We then had another long train journey 7 hours to Jishou and bus (1 hour) to Fenghuang. Yet again I can't get over how well the children have travelled. They were both woken at 9.30 and we had a 20min walk to find our hostel, which was pretty dire. We were particulary cold last night, no hot water and when J found cockroaches in his socks this morning we made a quick exit. The kids are looking a little run down but Nats remedies will hopefully do the trick!!! combined with a rest in this charming village will hopefully give them time to recharge after a busy few weeks. We have had to do some laundry today as we were down to the last pair of pants and socks, unfortuantely the weather is rather parky and it looks as if it might be a few days before it dries. I've sucessfully uploaded some photos but haven't had time to label them, but they'll give you a picture of what we've done and seen.There are many street vendors everywhere, all selling the same products. They always seem to group together and you go to a pariticular district to buy whatever it is your after, ie tools, clothes, food etc. Kids have been rather interested at the markets where you can pick and choose the meat you want to have killed to order.

We have not been very sucessful in restuarants, much of what we ordered has been pretty disgusting. The British interpretation of what the Chinese eat is very different. Many of the hostels report "Chinese food only tastes good outside China" and we would mostly agree with that comment. Noodles are swimming in a broth and they use any cut of meat (usually with the bones left in. Had written much more but system keeps crashing. will post this and try and write more next time.