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that spouted a solid jet of water which, without the refinement of a shower rose, pelted you from an overhead pipe. I got a drenching torrent of stone cold water and beat a hasty retreat. Ten minutes later it was still running cold, so I sought help. A housemaid said she would come and show me how to get hot water. I took off my clothes again, put them on the bench on one side of the bathroom and was standing there nude and freezing when she came in and said, ‘You wait.’ She removed her shoes, turned both the taps on full bore and latched the door open. I was on public view again. Then, to my amazement the maid calmly dropped her trousers, whipped off her shirt and joined me in the shower.
    This day was the first clear day I had seen in Shanghai. It was Monday and the factories had been shut for the weekend. The line of spectacular nineteenth-century buildings along the Bund, Shanghai’s famous riverfront, stood out against a blue sky. I was glad I saw Shanghai in this light. It was also fantastic to be warm enough to throw off my woollies, even though the locals were out buying their longjohns and the shops were full of winter fashions.
    Feeling the need to pig out on something uncomplicated, I walked to Nanning Street to disgrace myself at McMaggot’s with two Big Macs and a Coke. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this at home. Sometimes in China, though, it was a welcome relief to eat something so utterly, familiarly western.
    At the river-boat office, just off the Bund, I managed to buy a ticket on the boat leaving that night for Wuhan. I would be able to change vessels there and go on to Chungking, which was almost as far as river passenger transport went. I walked back along the Bund, past the harbour and across Huangpu Creek, to the Pujiang. Styrofoam containers choked the creek and the edges of the river. On the bridge an old woman, who looked about the same age as her wares, sold hundred-year eggs from a wicker push cart.

3 River Dragons
    At five in the evening I went to the riverboat terminal on the Bund. Boarding the steamer presented no problems, except that in this huge place there was no sign to tell me which ship left from where. I showed my ticket to several people stationed at gateways and sat in a waiting area I hoped was the right place. I allowed a porter to carry my bags aboard, more as an act of charity than from necessity.
    The big riverboats were better than the coastal ships. They carried about 700 passengers who were mostly accommodated in cabins that housed ten to twenty people. The entire bottom deck of the boat held cargo, and only a few people travelled deck class or slept in the corridors. Officially there was no first class – the top-ranking category was called ‘second’ as a concession to communist sensitivity. But in the isolation of the prow and away from the smelly, crowded areas, it was still exclusive. Third class was on the other end of the same deck and the hoi polloi were on the two lower decks. A guard, stationed on a chair at the entrance to the second-class section, repelled invaders from the lesser ranks. A big notice like a stop sign stood beside him. I supposed it said, ‘Peasants keep out!’
    I found myself sharing a two-bed cabin on the outside deck with a back-packing British female with no hair. The cabin beds had curtains that could be pulled around them for privacy. On one wall was a vinyl bench seat and, on the other, a small mirror-fronted cupboard hung above a wash basin whose taps produced brown river water.
    This ship, the Yangtze Star , was the cleanest conveyance I had travelled on so far in China. But there was the usual hawking and spitting all around. I always put my head out over the deck railing very warily. You could cop more than a face full of fresh air out there. The well-bred spat over the side, the ill-mannered, on the deck. But the decks and cabin floors were washed down frequently and the Western toilets in second class were