Yangtze River Cruise

We went off to the airport and boarded a plane to a place called Yichang (ee Chang) the start of our Yangtze adventure. Yichang is over 3000 years old and use to be relatively small before the dam was built. It is now over 4 million people with 1.5 million living in the city centre and growing. From what we saw of it, it looked like a dump of a city, very grotty in the city with lots of hovel looking high rises that I wouldn't allow a dog to live in, really depressing. They built the three gorge dam here which is really what gives it its life but it shows to be an industrial town. 

They started building the dam in 1993, it took 21 years to complete, displaced 1.2 million people which costs the government 40 billion yuan to relocate and continues to be a very controversial project. Along with this dam they have also built 5 locks to get the ships from the bottom of the dam to the top, a height of around 90-100 metres. Downstream the level is 62-72 metres and at the top its around 160 metres. These locks are the largest inland locks in the world and only compete with the Panama Canal which is a sea lock and most of us had never heard of them before. They truly are an engineering marvel and amazing to go through. It took us over 3 hours to go through all 5, by the time we had finished it was dark so it was difficult to film.

Anyway, we boarded our so called 5 star ship (after a hair raising steep decent down a goat track in the bus) which was meant to be only one of 4 on the river of this quality. It is a nice boat but maybe it was 5 star 30 years ago, certainly not now. It does have beautiful chandeliers and large sweeping marble staircases with the promise of opulence but it somehow misses the mark. We can't complain about the food tho as every meal has been excellent, more than I can say for the regular meals we have had. Our room is of average size with a nice balcony. The others are all side by side from us so mum is next door, then Shirene & Malcolm then Maureen and roger. The gates to each balcony opens so we can open them all up and have one long balcony.

We didn't cast off until the next morning at 7am. We went up on deck for an early morning coffee and watched people doing their tai chi and the sail away. We didn't get far, first stop was 8.30 for the first excursion of the Tribe of Three Gorges. We hopped off and took a 3 hour walk down a side arm of the river and through some very beautiful scenery. They had done it quite well, the walk around the side of the cliff was tiled with pagodas along the way and very easy walking. We crossed a smaller river a couple of times and in this river they had boats with a girl in it with her parasol, or people at the side of the river doing their washing or a fisherman in his boat to demonstrate what life was like in the past. It was a bit touristic but you got the idea and it was very scenic. 

After lunch was the excursion to the Three gorge dam project. We didn't get to go inside it or see the turbines which was a bit disappointing but we did get to see the scale of it all. They are currently building a ship elevator which will make it a bit quicker for smaller boats to go from one side to the other instead of lining up for the locks and takes about 3-4 hours to traverse.  

At 5.30pm we got to the first lock so we all went up on deck to watch. It was just as amazing as the Panama Canal, if not more so. The gates were huge and when we went inside our boat was very snug up to the wall. It was the side our cabin was on so if we stood on our deck our nose almost touched the wall. Another ship like ours came in behind us and a long, narrow barge came up beside them. I think our boat was a bit wider so he couldn't come up any closer. Once we were all in the gates shut and the water started to rise. It made a very eerie creaking noise as the valves were open and the water rushed in. Within 10 minutes we were up to the top and the front gates opened to lead us into the next lock.

Unbeknownst to us the captain was throwing a welcome party so we had wandered into the middle of it, Jon in his mussel shirt and us in our walking shoes and day clothes. Next minute we had a glass of champagne in our hands, were nibbling on horsdoeuvre   and mixing it up with everyone dressed in their evening gear. We had to rush back to our cabin after that to get ready for dinner. After dinner I went back up on deck to watch the last of the locks, we finally emerged around 9 pm.

After breakfast the next morning was the excursion up the Shennong stream. We had to transfer to another smaller boat as the gorges were very narrow here. It was a beautiful boat ride up this river, the water was very green and the cliffs rose dramatically up from the water to a towering 1000 meters or so above. In some parts of it, in the very narrow crevices, high above they had what they called hanging coffins. In the past (over 200 years ago) they use to bury their dead for three years. Then they dug them up, gave the bones a bit of a washing then put them back in the coffin and wedged them in the crevices of the cliffs. How they got them there seems a mystery but it sure was some feat. This river is 60km long and the further up you go the purer the water as its fed from snowy waters. It use to be a lot shallower but since the dam its flooded the land and made the river so much deeper.

The hanging coffins

High above one of the mountains was a longevity village. The oldest person was 108 years old (he was a tracker until the age of 84) and out of the 200 people who lived there, at least 12 people were over a hundred years old. They descend from the top of the mountain to the river to take a boat into town to sell what they had like Chinese herbal medicines, goats, pigs etc then come back with what they need such as salt and yarns. In the past this was a difficult journey. The river is very swift so it use to take an hour or so to get to town but about 3 days to get back. For some reason they didn't have motors on the boat so they used manpower called trackers. These men would be harnessed up, generally naked as their clothes were made of heavy cloth which would drag them down in the water and rub on their skin causing problems like arthritis later on so it was easier to have no clothes on. They would then haul the boat upriver, sometimes over very shallow water with rocks and sometimes having to literally crawl over the cliff slides to drag the boat along. Our guides father and grandfather were trackers so it wasn't that long ago they were still doing this.

The Shennong stream has three gorges of its own, the Mianzhu, Yingwu and Lonchang gorge. I couldn't tell the difference in each one but they were all pretty spectacular and after taking 10 zillion photos I still couldn't stop. We stopped at a small village, were treated to a culture show, had the opportunity to buy some more crap from the stall holders before heading back downstream to rejoin our ship. I had to feel sorry for the villagers as this was obviously their big opportunity to make a bit of money but we didn't stay long so I don't think they got much out of us.

That afternoon we had a leisurely cruise through the second and third of the three gorges. The second one is Wu gorge and the most scenic of the three. It also has these dramatic sandstone cliffs rising sharply from the water.

The first gorge is called Xiling which is just past Yichang, our starting point and the third is Qutang gorge. This is the smallest of the three at only 8kms long and takes about 1/2 hour to traverse. Along the way we past lots of little villages that looked a bit reminiscent of the Mediterranean. The house are black and white, their whitewashed walls glowing on the hillside with what we thought looked like orange groves and lots of cultivated land all around them. We also past big industrial cities, huge bridges spanning the river and loads of high rises covering the banks.

River cruising seems so much more scenic and pleasant to ocean cruising, there is always something to see as the scenery and landscape changes constantly as it silently slips past our balcony.  

Our last excursion for the day and for the trip was a visit to ghost city in Fengdu. It wasn't a ghost town but rather where they believed that the spirit went to after a person dies. In Taoism they believe in only one life so when you die your spirit leaves for the underworld and this place was the doorway to it. I'm not sure about the spirits but by the time we climbed the 300 or so stairs to get there, we were feeling closer to death and about ready to enter it ourselves. There were several temples up there as well as the gates to hell. When you stepped over the threshold you weren't allowed to touch the gates (not sure what would happen but I wasn't game enough to try). We also crossed over the love bridge, holding hands, women had to start with their right foot and men with their left and you had to do it in 9 steps. If you did that and kissed at the end your love would last forever.

The love bridge, they didn't kiss so not sure how long this will last for

Fengdu was one of the cities that got flooded so the original city is deep underwater and they built a new city on the other side of the banks higher up. People were given a choice of moving to the new city, moving to another city or moving into the country. I think the younger people thought this was great but not so much the older folk.

Back on the boat for the last time which seemed very sad, we had a few drinks on the balcony before dressing up to go to the captains farewell dinner. Another glass of very sweet champers was waiting for us and a bit of a speech from the captain before we could tuck into dinner then a  Cabaret show with a couple of groups of passengers doing a skit and the staff put on some dancers and sung a few songs. Then it was off to bed to get ready for another long day and the flight home, over 28 hrs later.

The day of disembarking dawned pouring with rain. In order to get our bags off the ship and onto dry, or in this case wet, land the bamboo men were employed to carry them off.  These guys carry all sorts of goods and are well know in Chongqing (pronounced Chong ching) a city of over 33 million people, as the bamboo men.  How they managed to carry some of those cases, carry their umbrellas and not fall over I'll never know but they must be very strong indeed.

Contemplating how he was going to lift these bags