The ferry entered the murky river into Shanghai before we woke up. But we had until 12 noon before we docked so there was still a long way to go. The river was busy with boats, container ships, long low boats full of gravel or sand, covered boats and fishing boats. We seemed to be the only passenger boat.

We passed docks and fishing areas and the sprawl of Shanghai for at least 4 hours. The ferry had to slow right down because of the number of boats which we were chaotically using the river. Our ferry captain did a good job using the horn to get the other boasts out of the way. We almost fell over board when he honked the first time.

We finally drew closer to the high rise buildings and the Bund. We docked and disembarked the ferry into the wall of heat. We then queued for Chinese border control, no smiles there. Linz and I were allowed in as were all the people that we met on the boat. WooHoo.

We proceeded through the terminal and then went to catch a taxi with the Swiss guy and German girl that we’d also meet on the ferry. The German girl worked at the German consulate. She was angry that the taxi driver was trying to charge us 50 yuan to take 4 of us to three different places. We settled on 40 yuan and set of onto the hectic roads of Shanghai.

It was an experience!!!!! I was scared. We shared the road with lorries, people on electric bikes, push bikes and mopeds, wheel chairs, pedestrians and Tuktuks. There were no seat belts and the driver obviously hadn’t been introduced to the brake pedal. Instead he used the horn.

Finally we dropped Switzerland (our name for the Swiss guy) at somewhere near his hotel, we stopped in the middle of the road top let him out. Then were went to People’s Square. Which is ‘near’ our hotel.

Turns out that People’s Square is huge. And were didn’t know where to go. We wandered. And wandered. Then we had to stop. We found a Starbucks with wireless, air conditioning and seats and attempted to find out where on earth we were supposed to go.

Linz did a sterling job, as my phone wouldn’t connect to the internet. We found what were thought was the right place on the map, a sort of address, and had cooled down enough to head out into the heat again.

10 minutes later our patience and determination was repaid. We found our hotel. We were ready to drop. A rest and a shower restored us enough to motivate us to go out onto the street again. Our hotel is fairly close to the main shopping area. We wandered and found some food. It was excellent and we caught the Shanghai bug.