|
Journal
Contact Us
Poems
Site Map
Search
| | Our most expensive activity in
China, we paid US prices for a fascinating trip 600 km upstream from Wuhan
through beautiful gorges. By 2003 the gorges will be gone as a dam floods the
area, so go NOW if you are interested.
The Yellow Crane Pagoda (another beautiful
temple complex) and the Hubei Museum (provincial museum with a
world-class exhibit of artifacts from a local emperor's tomb, including a
magnificent set of bells) are the main tourist attractions of Wuhan, while a
walk through the night markets made us think we were in a zoo with live poultry,
snakes, eels, fish, rabbits, and other livestock on display for the evening
meal. We met a very interesting architect who walked along the waterfront
with us, and filled us in on the local history. Many of the slums have
been razed in anticipation of foreign investment on the riverbanks.
Our next adventure was to be a cruise up the Chang
Jiang (aka Yangtze River). Here is our route, pick a spot and we'll
tell you a little about it:
Day
1- Wuhan to Yueyang
- We  boarded the
Victoria Cruises cruise liner Victoria Prince
at sundown in the midst of
great confusion and yelling by our taxi driver, ready for a relaxing 5 day
cruise to Chongqing.
Day
2 - Yueyang to Yichang
- a short tour of a Pagoda (we decided not to go), Chinese lessons, and a lecture on the
3 Gorges Dam project occupied much of the day. 
Many little factories were nestled on the hills, and coal was extracted from
seams on the hillsides and channeled directly to factories or loading docks on
the river. 3 great meals were capped off by a fashion show of
period Chinese outfits.
Day
3 - Yichang to Wushan
- early in the morning the boat was lifted 23 meters at the Gezhouba Dam
and Lock (compared
to the Panama Canal, it is 3 times as high, equivalent to being lifted all the
way to Gatun lake in 1 lock). Midday we visited the site of the 3
Gorges Dam, a controversial flood control and power generation project
where a 100 meter-high dam will create a reservoir more than 600 km long. It was
very hazy, and visibility was poor, but the scale of the project is huge.
The day wrapped up with a Chinese painting demonstration and more food as we
moored near Wushan.
Day
4 - Wushan to Wanzhou
- the trip through the gorges was spectacular, steep cliffs line both side of
the Yangtze, sometimes soaring 1000 meters above us. The hillsides were
lined with towns and villages, each with a twin, located above the high water
level, where people will move when their home, farm or apartment is flooded by
the rising water. We diverted to the Lesser Gorges, 
a beautiful tributary
with smaller cliffs and farms on each side - also destined to be flooded into a
placid bay.
Day
5
- Wanzhou to Chongqing - a shore trip in Wanzhou, this time to watch
a young acrobatic team (Fantastic), museum (terrible), and a market (great
vegetables, meats, and livestock).  One highlight of the trip was a caravan
of police and army vehicles parading shackled criminals (each with a sign around
his neck stating his crime) through the main street
- they looked very unhappy and it occurred to us that they were not long for
this life. We had a tour of the ship's bridge (NO electronics, no GPS, no
autopilot, none of the toys we cruisers have come to believe are essential) and
a demonstration of painting the inside of small bottles, a typical Chinese
craft. Then a farewell banquet and a night of rest before disembarking in
the morning
Day 6
- Chongqing - we arrived right on time at 0900 amid a little
drizzle. A short cable-car took us to the street level, and we grabbed a taxi to
the bus station. A few hand-signals later we had our ticket to Leshan,
join us there.
|
