This is a story about a trip that I took with two friends in the very early 1980's. In those distant days only the China International Travel Service (CITS) could book boat trips, flights, anything -- and the CITS then was not exactly a paragon of efficiency. In fact, we called their booking service Adventure Travel. The unexpected was to be expected and every trip was a journey into the unknown -- thus guaranteed to be an adventure. This trip fell in that category and, like most trips, for years afterwards provided us with chaff for our endless "China stories."

On this particular trip adventure was almost guaranteed: my Chinese was pretty dodgy in those days and I was traveling with an old (late 60's) American friend and her sister-in-law (even older), and both had never traveled to China before. We somehow managed to get from Beijing to Chongqing in time to pick up our "guaranteed" top class reservations for the next morning's boat. We would then travel down the Yangtze to Wuhan, from whence we would fly back to Shanghai. We checked into our reserved hotel, one that resembled the Temple of Heaven in Beijing but without its charm and tidiness, and hurried down to the CITS office (all major hotels had one) on the premises.

We dug out our flimsy receipt, on the thinnest of paper and written only in Chinese, and presented it to a bored clerk. She scanned it with disinterest and tossed it over to her colleague. He then pulled out a heavily over-written (read: overbooked) boat list, consulted it at length, tossed our precious piece of paper back at us with a scowl and a "Meiyou" and dismissed us forthwith.

Even now we get an occasional Meiyou in China, but in those days it was almost a given. It meant, in descending order, something like, No Have, No Way, and/or Go Away and Don't Bother Me. Our astonished protests, the proffered receipt, the pleas and blandishments, all elicited not a shred of sympathy, only a repeated "Sold Out" as they turned away to more important things (like nail filing and the day's newspapers). I didn't know too much Chinese in those days but I had learned a few things about China - and Going Away was never an option if you wanted anything. It made it too easy for them.

Abandoning any plan to tour Chongqing (not a tempting prospect in those days anyway), we three petulant, plump foreign ladies plopped ourselves down on their sagging sofa and sat - and sat - and sat. People came and went, there were some shouted exchanges with customers (all in the same boat, I assume), and as it got toward closing time the clerks ceased ignoring us for the first time. It was obvious they were ready to go home and there sat these three stolid, implacable foreign impediments. After consulting among themselves they finally called me over and said there were (miraculously!) three tickets available if we perversely insisted on going tomorrow instead of waiting for some dim distant day in the future for our assigned cabin berths.

With one voice we said we'd take them! There was this teeny-weeny problem: they were not the top class, nor the one below that. They were, in fact, fifth class. This was at the height of the egalitarian dream in China, and there was no first class. Second was the topside cabin class, third was the more crowded cabins or perhaps dorms, I am not sure what fourth was, but fifth was deck space. Never mind, we just wanted out of charmless Chongqing - and now!

They entered a notation on their list, shoved it into a desk drawer, slammed three flimsy tickets onto the table in front of us, escorted us to the door and slammed it behind us. In that sudden flurry of action I failed to get any details but somehow things always seem to work out in China. After all, I knew where the river was and there was only one boat a day, at some ungodly hour in the morning, so what's to worry about?

The next morning a taxi delivered us to the top of a exceedingly long and steep series of steps, slippery from rain or fog, that led to a boat. Portage coolies swarmed around the passengers (all Chinese as far as we could see) as we schlepped our luggage down to the gangplank. There an astonished attendant looked at us and our cheap-class tickets, then shrugged and pointed downward toward steerage. Never mind, we were aboard and that was all that mattered.

When we got to the lowest open deck we found every inch of deck space already occupied by Chinese passengers, contentedly lying on their straw mats, using their modest bundles as pillows. We stood like a gaggle of stupid sheep until our shepherd, a friendly fifth-class attendant, surveyed the situation and motioned for us to follow him aft. There we found a nook with two window openings and a doorway -- but no doors or windows. It was about 6x8 feet, and two three-tiered bunks with thin pallets took up all the space. Two Chinese from Hong Kong had already claimed the two lower bunks but the rest was ours. We slung our bags onto the top bunk (there was no space for them on the minuscule cabin floor) and settled in with a relieved sigh. It was pretty grotty, but my friends turned out to be remarkably good sports - and they also knew that the alternative lying outside our doorway was even less appealing.

And we had a grand time for the rest of that trip! As most of the passengers at our level were probably peasants, or at least not Chinese who saw many foreigners (this in 1982, remember), the door and window openings were never free from faces peering in to see the foreign show. They viewed us with great interest and discussed, often with laughter, our various activities, our appearance, who knows? Luckily I could not understand what they were saying and our Hong Kong couple did not seem to speak either English or Putonghua.

There was really not much to see, as of course we never removed our clothes, save for our shoes when we lay down, and in fact we also never took baths! The rest of the passengers immediately availed themselves of the hot water, a by-product of the boat's boilers that was free to all in the communal washrooms. Soon the world outside our door was festooned with sagging clotheslines and clothing hung on all railings. People washed their hair and dried it in the sunlight as they chatted among themselves and shyly smiled at us, the Great Unwashed. They luxuriated in the convenience of limitless hot water and it was wonderful to see. (I am sure to this day they still talk about the filthy foreigners on that boat who never once, in five days, took a bath.)

We also visited the toilets very sparingly. They were unspeakable: long, over-filled troughs where water and sewage sloshed back and forth with the boat's sideward surges (blessedly few). This meant that we also ate sparingly, but that too was an adventure. Three times a day a smiling cook (we assumed, from his spotty white apron) tapped on our doorframe and made motions of shoveling food into his mouth. We always declined breakfast but at noon and in the evening we docilely followed him to our reserved corner of the dining room, to a round oilcloth-covered table just for us five. It was by a window that also was never free from friendly faces peering in -- especially at the other two ladies, who used their chopsticks to wind their noodles around.

The menu always consisted of noodles or rice, one vegetable -- and chicken. And therein also lies a tale. In order to get out of our cramped cabin we spent most of our days on the crowded deck. Our attendant had shooed everyone off the lifeboat outside our door (which I noted no longer had its lowering ropes attached) and that became our daily perch, our feet resting on the railing. We had cool and sunny weather for three days as the Three Gorges unfurled in front of us. What more could one ask.

Under the lifeboat also lived the chickens, their legs tied with twine to the railing. We all sat there together in companionable silence and watched the scenery slide by. Being animal lovers -- we Americans usually are -- we saved peanuts for them and they would cluck happily as we fed them daily. But, alas, we soon noticed that each day there was one less of them. By the last day we were down to only one friendly old hen - and that night we again had chicken for dinner. It did cast a slight pall over our otherwise delightful fifth-class cruise down the Yangtze.