Six photos from the Yangtze

Today, Americans all over the world give thanks that the English invented them. Bu yong xie, it was our pleasure. In completely irrelevant celebration, here are six photos from a recent trip from spicy Chongqing down the foggy Yangtze to mind-crunchingly boring Wuhan.

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Everyone has time for a noodle pit-stop in Chongqing. Your worth in this city is judged by your tolerance for spice. That night, eating hotpot with friends, I held back tears at the hottest lettuce I have ever tasted.

Chongqing’s reputation is of a smog-smothered Gotham. But not far outside the city, the scenery is worthy of a classical painting. I came across this vase standing on a wall in just such a quiet spot, at dusk.

On my boat downstream, I felt like a cow being herded through over-grazed pastures. Here you may take a photo. Here you may pay an extortionate entrance fee to a temple. Here you may chew the cud.

At Yichang, we make port and the Yangtze is shrouded in mist. Behind me, I overhear a Chinese fellow traveller boasting “look, I took 409 photos in three days”. “More than me”, someone replies, enviously.

In Wuhan’s Yellow Crane Tower museum, I come across the most obviously photoshopped photograph ever. Brazenly displayed, with others just like it at either side. Seriously, who do they think they’re kidding?

The pagoda forest at Shaolin monastery … the only place on the grounds where fighting is discouraged. The first monk I came across in Shaolin, by the way, asked me how to say ’shopping’ in English.