swabbed out now and then. I was to find that other riverboats were also reasonably clean, which was a wonder after the filthy coastal ships, but their toilets usually suffered due to the inability of the locals to use them or flush them in the western way. Some Chinese relieved themselves how and when they liked. Through the door of a toilet which he had, with a singular lack of modesty, left wide open, I saw one man peeing on the floor. Another I caught unconcernedly spraying overboard.
The Yangtze Star set off down the Huangpu River in the dark. The lights that strung out along the Bund looked sensational. It was fairyland. Shanghai’s pride and joy, the garish TV tower, with its iridescent pink and green lights, resembled something out of a Disney movie – lurid, sensational, and unbelievable. The shore lights gradually became further apart as we moved downriver making for the place where the Huangpu joins the mouth of the Yangtze, China’s longest river, at the sea. A dark junk slid past, outlined between us and the shore. Lit only by a dim lantern, it was an Oriental vignette. Many big boats towing barges on long chains also passed us, as well as small craft of all kinds – sampans, fishing boats and dugouts. Nothing was smart or new, and I saw no pleasure craft. The boats that were mostly used as work-horses on the river were long and narrow and had a wheel-house perched on their rear ends and open decks in front where cargo was carried.
There were a few lights on the riverbanks far away as we passed around the island in the middle of the confluence of the two rivers and turned into the wide Yangtze channel.
My room-mate, Susan, was going home to England via Beijing after working for a year in Japan. We investigated the boat and found no one on the staff who spoke a word of English and few facilities. There was a dining room of sorts, but most passengers bought meals that were dispensed in plastic boxes, all of which went overboard when they had finished. On one side of the ship a vendor sold fruit from boxes and, of all the curious things to find on a boat like this, a clothing stall had been set up on one of the companionways between decks. Here, amid much hilarity, I allowed Susan and the shop lady to convince me that I could not live without a pair of gold, yellow and black striped silk pants. I put the pants on and modelled them, much to their delight. It was the only time I ever wore them. Once off the boat I thought they were dreadful. I also bought a pair of knickers with a zippered pocket in front. For money? But how did you get to it when it was wanted?
It soon became cold outside on the river, but it was warm and cosy in our cabin. Next-door we had noisy neighbours who shouted at the top of their voices, bumped the walls and slammed their door with absolute abandon. At times during the night we stopped at towns. The engines would shut down and the racket next door would start up again to mingle with the noise from the wharf and the stamping of heavy feet overhead where the bridge and crew quarters were.
At dawn I looked out to see the immense, muddy brown waters of the Yangtze on which, partly shrouded by a grey mist, the river traffic meandered. A cold wind blew onto the deck and occasional whitecaps broke on the water. We stopped at a dreary riverside town where I watched a dredge working and a man on the deck of a pontoon below wash his longjohns and shirt in a tin basin and hang them on a conveniently strung rope.
After half an hour the boat’s hooter gave a loud blast and we were off again. The Yangtze Star , for all its size and appearance of being top heavy, took off smartly from landings and rapidly gathered speed.
The Yangtze River is known as Chang Jiang, the long river. And so it is. It is the third longest river in the world, and is beaten only by the Nile and the Amazon. Arising in the snow-covered Tanggulashan mountains in Qinghai, it flows through Tibet and cuts across the middle of
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