SAIL DOWN THE YANGTZE

The Yangtze is the third largest river in the world, with over 700 tributaries feeding from Tibet. It is a MAJOR waterway for barges, tugs, fisherman and all kinds of boats. We boarded the Victoria Jenna in the evening, had our safety drill and retired to our small but adequate stateroom to get some rest. We sailed all night and got up for a delicious breakfast buffet. We were getting the royal treatment andhad our   own dining room with our own servers. We were also on the top stateroom floor.  Most of the other shipmates were Chinese. There were various stops along the way, and even a ship's Dr. ,who was trained in traditional Western medicine and Chinese medicine

Iike accupucture and cupping, and accupressure. One lazy am, I went to his lecture on the Chinese Medicine. He was also the ship's Tai Chi expert, but our guide Michael was already leading us in Tai Chi.

The first moring we stopped at the 12 story RED Pagoda, which wasmbuilt in 1816'and simply rests against the rocks, without securment in anyway.  

Also, today I was standing on on our little balcony, and I saw something floating which I thought was a large garbage sack. The current was bringing it closer and closer and I saw it was a dead body floating face down in the Yangtze.  I saw it very clearly and looked over at our friends cabin and the man was also seeing it and takng pictures. He told the capt and crew, but nothing was done about it, really. Nothing. It looked like it had been dead for awhile and there were other boat traffic on the river, so my feeling was they didn't want to mess with the schedual if they reported it and had to wait for police, etc.

So.....