Day 12 – Saturday 14 April - The Three Gorges

Today is a special highlight of our river journey as we sail through the magnificent Three Gorges and take an excursion down the three small gorges on the Shennong river.

First up is the Qutang Gorge - the biggest and most spectacular. A sheer sided ravine through which the Yangtze weaves. Still a bit misty, so slightly eery as we proceed. True it is large, true it is imposing, but I guess for me it was not as striking as I'd expected, but good to have seen it.

The Second Gorge, the Wu Gorge, er, likewise, nice to have ticked it off the list of things to see in the world.

The boat docked and we boarded a kind of metal pseudo-junk boat and chugged away up stream up the river Shennong. This was as interesting and spectacular (if that's the word) as the three mighty Gorges themselves. As the river narrowed, we moored again and we were loaded into smaller raft-like boats, holding about 16 passengers and drivern by what could best be described as three boys in shorts with beautiful buts. Sonia and I had front seat views as these sinewy lads stood and paddled for about 20 minutes on a rather uninteresting round tour in the baking hot sun. For Sonia, even the fascination of the boys' backsides could not last the length of the journey.

Back to the small boat and then back to the large boat and we were away again and into the third unremarkable gorge and off to dinner again for the next round of United Nations debate.

I was entirely underwhelmed at the end of the day. The Three Gorges, for me, overrated and I'd rather go boating on Ullswater in the English Lakes, even if it does rain there most of the time.