Cruising the Yangtze River upstream

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Day 465: Wednesday 7th October - A journey with an uncertain ending

I don’t know why I do it to myself but if I’m honest journeys like this are actually one of the fun things about backpacking in a strange way. What am I talking about? Well a journey where you have a destination in mind but don’t know if you will be able to reach it and one where you have no accommodation pre-booked. I’m sure 99% of the population would consider what I’m doing today a definite ‘no way I’m doing that’ but I belong to the 1% of crazy people.

I have a bus ticket to get to Wuhan, which lies on the Yangtze River and is the capital of Hubei province. The bus leaves Tunxi at just before 8am. I get a taxi from the hostel at 7am to give myself plenty of time. There is no-one left to disturb in the dormitory as they’ve been disturbing me since 4:30am this morning. I don’t know why but the Chinese are unable to work out the etiquette of staying in dorms like the rest of the world? Or maybe I’ve got unlucky? Last night a Chinese guy arrived at going on 11pm and started to have a telephone conversation at the top of his voice whilst half the dormitory was trying to get to sleep. This morning probably the same culprit proceeds to chat with his buddy whilst they are getting ready (again hardly in whispers) before 5am in the morning!! It’s alright guys I’m not really trying to sleep, I’m just pretending!!!

The bus journey to Wuhan ends up taking 9 hours and I catch up on some sleep on a large portion of it. We stop for lunch just before noon and I ask the driver through hand signals how long we’ve got and he motions ‘2’. Two hours, two minutes, we leave at 2pm, who knows??? Again this belongs in the ‘In China without knowledge of the language you never really know what’s happening’ category. I reckon on about twenty minutes so grab a quick bite to eat with the rest of the bus and my estimate isn’t far wrong - we stop for half an hour. The afternoon is notable for a scuffle which breaks out on the bus between a passenger and one of the two drivers. I don’t know why but the passenger is irate and threatens the driver first with the hammer for smashing the glass in an emergency and then a wooden pole. He’s going completely mental for about 10 minutes until he gets dumped on the side of the road!

The bus arrives in Wuhan at 4pm but takes an hour to make its way through another huge provincial city, one of the largest in China. The only positive note of this hour spent crawling through traffic is crossing the bridge over the Yangtze River and seeing one of the world’s great rivers close up. So, at 5pm I’m dropped at the bus station and I immediately make my way to the ticket office to try to get a ticket to Yichang, Hubei’s second city which lies 360km west of Wuhan and further upstream on the Yangtze. Despite a 9 hour journey already, I have no intention to stay in Wuhan, it was always my fall back option if I couldn’t connect on to Yichang today. But, I manage to get a ticket for the next bus which leaves in less than half an hour so it works out really well.

In the waiting room for the bus to Yichang a girl approaches me who speaks English and I have my first conversation of the day (well technically the third but I’m not counting the one with the guy on reception at the hostel this morning or the one on the phone with XueLan on the bus). The fact that you’re travelling alone, on an uncertain journey when nobody around speaks your language may sound daunting to some but after a year on the road I treat it as just another of life’s challenges. In a weird kind of way I’ll miss putting myself through these little tests. Anyway, this girl studied in England and tells me that it will take four and a half hours to reach Yichang (which it does) and that her family (who don’t speak English) are returning to Yichang on the same bus and will help find me a hotel. What a lovely girl, but this sort of kindness isn’t uncommon when the Chinese can speak English. They extend both a warm welcome and an offer to help if they can.

I arrive in Yichang at 10pm, 15 hours after the day started but I still have only two out of my four objectives for the day ticked. Get to Wuhan, and then get to Yichang are done with, now to find accommodation and then to sort out my Yangtze River trip. The family of the girl point out a hotel facing the bus station which is one I had come across last night on the internet when I was having a look at my options. Yichang isn’t blessed with budget accommodation, actually rephrase that, it has no hostels so a budget hotel is the alternative. Wonhow Motel is by my standards of what I’ve been used to paying in China, a luxury. It is 200 Yuan (£18) for a night but I guess I was paying the same for a dorm bed in Japan just two weeks ago so for one night who am I to complain. It’s nice and a bit of luxury for one night never hurt anybody.

My final task of the day is to sort out my Yangtze River trip. Yichang is the departure point for river cruises upstream on the Yangtze, hence the reason I’m here. I’ve been in correspondence with an agency the past couple of days on email but with my arrival in Yichang uncertain I haven’t finalised anything. I was meant to call them earlier today but my phone has run out of credit so I’m hoping I’m not too late to sort things out for tomorrow as it is well past 10pm now. When I check my email I have a few urgent messages in my inbox to call the local manager, which the hotel do for me. He doesn’t speak English but his associate calls back and agrees to meet me in the hotel shortly. When he arrives we have a short chat about the itinerary for the next few days and I hand over a big bundle of cash - 1500 Yuan (£140) for the 3 day trip, including an excursion to the Three Gorges Dam tomorrow.

It has all ended up going to plan, but I had a funny feeling that it would. Travelling for so long gives you that kind of confidence that despite a lack of a concrete plan everything will work out alright. And, of course I still have Mama Naxi’s good luck charm from my first visit to China, and with that anything is possible!

Day 466: Thursday 8th October - The Three Gorges Dam

My stay in my up-market (well for me) accommodation is sadly brief as I am meeting Edward at 8am in the hotel lobby, so there is no time to relax and enjoy the comforts. Edward tries to help with getting credit for my mobile phone but the shop isn’t open yet so we jump in a taxi to meet the tour bus. We only just make it in time before the bus leaves. I join a Chinese tour and I am the only foreigner, which I’m sure frustrates the tour guide. I feel the guide is frustrated with me but some of the Chinese on the tour are loving me - another photo call with the women and kids! The tour is conducted 100% in Mandarin and my only dialogue with the guide is through sign language to check how long we have at each of the stops.

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric river dam that spans the Yangtze River just outside Yichang. It is the world's largest electricity-generating plant of any kind. The dam body was finished in 2006 and all of the originally planned dam components of the project were completed on October 30, 2008, when the 26th generator was brought into commercial operation. Six additional generators in the underground power plant are being installed and are not expected to become fully operational until around 2011.

It may seem like a little odd to want to see a dam, but being the world’s largest power plant and a much talked about construction project I am more than a little curious. Unfortunately the weather Gods are not smiling today and just trying to see it through the dense fog can be tricky at times. Still, you do get an idea of the gargantuan size of the project. Over 2 kilometres long, almost 200 metres high, made with enough steel to construct 63 Eiffel Towers and that is just the physical dimensions of the project. But, it is the economic and social aspects that truly amaze.

The project produces hydroelectricity for all cities within 1000 kilometres of the dam. That includes Chengdu to the west, Shanghai to the east, Xian to the north and Guangzhou to the south. To date it has generated enough electricity to cover more than one third of its project cost which as the project has just gone fully functional is amazing. It is also a move away from greenhouse gas emissions which when you visit many of China’s large cities can only be a good thing for the Chinese people and the world we live in. However, even with the colossal size of the project it still provides only 3% of China’s total electricity needs. In addition, the new dam improves flood control. Many people live along the Yangtze River and floods last century killed tens of thousands and displaced 20 million people.

Despite the huge social and economic positives of the project listed above that hasn’t stopped huge criticism for the project from both domestic and international sources. The dam has also flooded archaeological and cultural sites and displaced some 1.2 million people from Hubei province and Chongqing municipality, and is causing significant ecological changes, including an increased risk of landslides. The rivers flow will slow, reducing its ability to clean itself thereby increasing pollution in the Yangtze which would affect the biodiversity on the river.

I’ve heard and read a lot about this project in the media and seeing it with my own eyes has led me to add my own thoughts on the debate. I marvel at the vision of the project and the Chinese people which made it a reality 75 years after it was first proposed by the father of modern Chinese politics - Sun Yat-sen. This project represents a momentous change to the lives of many ordinary Chinese people affected by it. With any major change there will be winners and losers, you can see that just by reading above. But overall, one gets the sense that the Three Gorges Dam is a positive thing, certainly economically and probably in balance environmentally and socially although there are losers in this area. Progress in China continues ahead with full steam, with another 4 dams upstream on the Yangtze in the planning stage.

My tour finishes at 1pm, dropping me in the centre of Yichang. I decide against getting a taxi back to my hotel and walk in the direction of where I believe the hotel to be. I stop at a China mobile store and manage through sign language to convey that I want to put 100 Yuan (£10) credit on my phone. My Mandarin may be rubbish but my sign language isn’t bad!!! I later discover that XueLan put 50 Yuan credit on last night as she was concerned I wouldn’t be able to make myself understood in a shop which was very sweet of her. I spend the remainder of the afternoon camped out in the hotel lobby waiting for Edward to pick me up at 5pm.

He arrives on cue and we get a taxi to another hotel where the bus will pick me up from. I don’t know why but I have a funny feeling that something is going to go wrong here. Everything has gone too well this last few days, something has to go wrong doesn’t it to even things up? I think part of it is the fact I handed a big bundle of cash yesterday in exchange for a hand written receipt where I did most of the writing!! However, There is to be no sting in a tail, Edward has been good to his word turning up exactly when he said he would through the last 24 hours and the bus arrives as well and all is okay. He parts by telling me that the guide, a miss Shung is known as ‘Panda’ because she’s a bit on the large side! I’m chuckling before I’ve even seen her.

Edward did say that I was the only foreigner on the boat which frankly came as no surprise. However, when I board the bus there is a Canadian guy, Riley which lifts my spirits as it will be someone to share the journey with and the first English speaker for a couple of days. The bus takes an hour to make the journey upstream of the dam where we board the boat at about 7pm.

The boat was described in the literature from the agency as being ‘so-so’. When an agency marketing a product describes something as ‘so-so’ your natural inclination is to downgrade their verdict a few pegs to a vessel which is so appalling it wouldn’t be allowed to sail in any developed country!! Expectation is key in travelling and with none in this case, I am pleasantly surprised when we do board. Okay this is no luxury cruise liner but it’s not that bad. One way of describing it is like the Titanic on its first voyage in 1912 without an overhaul in the meantime. Yes its rough around the edges, the decor is dated and was probably once considered the height of fashion and class..... probably about 100 years ago!! However, I have a room to myself in first class (I had expected to be sharing) and the boat is fairly empty just like the one from Japan to Shanghai was.

The guide who surprisingly speaks some English tries to sell me a first class entertainment ticket for 60 Yuan (£5) for use of the first class lounge, free tea for the duration of the journey, karaoke and use of the deck area. I have a look before committing and decide against it as its first class in name only!! The third class lounge is just the same minus the free tea and some chairs which have seen better days, and it’s free. The staff are finding me and Riley a fascination, and of course I play up to this at every opportunity. Throw a couple of words of Mandarin in, a smile or some other innocent gesture and they’re in a fit of giggles. I soon am giggling myself when I realise that the guide I’ve been talking to is Miss Shung aka the famous Panda. She must have been on a diet of fat-free bamboo because like most Chinese she is far from fat - probably Edward winding me up!! The other guide - a guy - then asks me if he can share my room or sleep with me, something like that. That’s just a touch too friendly mister so I decline his offer. I finish the evening chatting with Riley over a few beers before an early night as I have to be up at 6am....another early morning...ouch!

Almost forgot, we still haven’t moved an inch before I go to bed for the night. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come?!

Day 467: Friday 9th October - The three gorges or should that be two?

We did finally move last night and by the time I walk out on to deck at 6:30am we are just starting to go through Wu Gorge. Cruising the Yangtze River is famous mainly because of the three narrow gorges that the journey passes through on the way from Yichang to Chongqing. We’ve actually passed through the first gorge (Xiling Gorge) on the way from Yichang to Chongqing during the night. This is supposed to be the least impressive and being on a ship whose prime purpose is a passenger ship rather than a tour cruise boat I can hardly complain. I’m just happy to be on the river, the world’s third longest at 6400km. Only the Nile and the Amazon are longer and having taken boat journeys on both those rivers this is completing the set of the world’s trio of great rivers.

It is two weeks since I took the boat from Japan to Shanghai and it is good to be back on a boat and viewing life at a different pace and perspective from that I have been used to the past two weeks in China. The last two weeks have almost been one city after another - Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Yichang even Tunxi. These are all cities with in excess of 1 million people and in the case of the first four, mega-cities which are amongst the dozen largest in China. Life on the water is lived at a sedentary pace, I can’t go anywhere, there isn’t much to do, I don’t have to think for three days but it is all a refreshing change from the fast pace of life back in China these past two weeks.

Wu Gorge - the gorge of the witches - is 40 kilometres in length and it must take about an hour and a half to pass through it. It has an ethereal feel to it, shrouded in early morning mist, cliffs frequently disappear and then reappear. The imposing cliffs rise several hundred metres and the gorge spans several hundred metres across. This is supposedly the most stunning of the three gorges but it is more an otherworldly splendour than a slap you in the face natural beauty. Maybe that is just the conditions we pass through the gorge in. It reminds me very much of Milford Sound in New Zealand. Similar scenery, similar weather conditions the only difference is that Milford Sound was a sea wall and this is a river gorge.

At 8am we get off the boat and transfer to a smaller boat for our day’s excursion. We get off at Wushan which has a similar ghostly feel as the nearby Wu Gorge. Does anyone live here? All I can see are numerous similar high rise buildings (presumably apartment blocks) but no sign of people or life except on the river bank. Odd. The boat takes us back along the Wu Gorge and then along the Little Three Gorges. The landscape is gorgeous, the narrow gorges possibly even more beautiful than The Three Gorges. The water is certainly a nicer colour. A strange member of the crew on the boat takes an interest in me and Riley and decides he can make some money from us. He tries to sell us some tea first at the inflated price of 20 Yuan (£2). Knock a zero off and we’d be interested. With this first attempt falling on deaf ears he beings out some Chinese art (artistic porn) and offers us this for 200 Yuan. He’s adding a zero too many still, but he keeps us entertained for a short while at least.

We stop off along the gorge to see some sort of stockade. It is 10 Yuan (£1) entrance fee which Riley and I refuse to pay. We’re not that interested. I ended up paying 20 Yuan yesterday for a temple I wasn’t interested in seeing when I wasn’t too sure what was going on and I’m not going to make that same mistake again. Instead we keep ourselves entertained with the various women selling exactly the same food as each other on half a dozen separate stalls. We’re half way up the cliffs of the gorge and surely there can’t be much of a passing trade to keep all these women in business?

We change boats again for an even smaller boat to make our way up the Little Three Gorges. This is becoming a bit like the boating equivalent of Russian Dolls, and before long we’re going to end up in a rowing boat!! We have an entertaining local boatman as a guide as we pass through perhaps the best scenery of the day, narrow gorges with shallow green water which reflects the overhanging cliffs like a mirror image. We have an opportunity to try on the local attire of the boatmen of the Yangtze. Several Chinese people try first before myself and Riley get involved. Of course when we do it causes great amusement to the Chinese tourists on our boat. All eyes are on us watching our every move with interest. Me being me plays up to my audience, a few random shouts and then I pretend to use the pole as a martial arts weapon. They love us, we could be stars!! Give yourself a slap Andrew, it’s only because you look and act different and that the Chinese are curious not because you have any special talent!!!

We swap back to the medium-sized boat and make our way back along Daning River to Dachang. On first appearances this is just like any normal Chinese town. Drab high rise apartment blocks dominate the cliff tops overlooking the river. However, tucked away in a small section of the town is a pocket sized ancient town where the architecture dates from the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368-1911). It has survived the cultural revolution unlike most old Chinese architecture and the houses are very exquisite and unique. Initially it reminds me of Lijiang, but the style of the buildings is quite different. I think why I am thinking of Lijiang is because so many Chinese towns and cities are modern and uniform and few buildings have survived from a century ago or earlier. In Lijiang they have and in Dachang also and it is well worth the additional 20 Yuan excursion fee.

I impress a vendor in one of the shops in Dachang old town with my knowledge of Chinese provinces. He has a map and I correctly point out ten or so provinces along with their correct pronunciation in Mandarin. I don’t think I could do the same with the counties in my country though, maybe but I wouldn’t be confident. I then start a conversation with our guide on the way back to the boat who mistakenly thinks I can speak Mandarin as my pronunciation of the few words or place names I know is apparently so good. I’m found out when she asks if I can speak Chinese and I just stare at her with a blank look. It is nice though for someone to make this mistake as at least I must have made a bigger effort than the average foreigner although at the end of the day I’m still hopeless. Just how hopeless is highlighted back on the boat when we have a language exchange, teaching each other how to count to ten in each other’s language. The Chinese manage to remember the English numbers and I’m well... just rubbish. Note, must learn the numbers when I’m back on the big boat.

It has been a long day so far with an early start and I sleep on the boat for two hours until we are reunited with the ship in Wushan. We then have a couple of hours free time before we pass through the final gorge - Qutang Gorge. Qutang Gorge is the shortest in length at only 8km long and it is over almost before it began. It is the narrowest of the three gorges at a mere 100 metres at its narrowest point and like Wu Gorge this morning the gorge offers huge strata and vast sheets of rock which rise almost vertically. We go through Qutang Gorge at 5pm and there is still time for one last shore excursion today. It is to a dam in Baidicheng but after seeing Three Gorges Dam yesterday which has to be much more impressive I opt to give it a miss and relax in my cabin instead.

I agree to meet Riley at 8pm for dinner but we discover that the restaurant was open briefly at 5pm, the same time as we were going through Qutang Gorge. We pop our heads in nevertheless but the staff are more interested in playing some game than offering any sort of service. There are staff aplenty on this boat but the standard of customer service is shocking. You have six people on reception who seem to do nothing other than stare into space or fool around in their pyjamas late at night, a restaurant that is never open and a shop where the girl makes you feel about as welcome as a fart in a lift whenever you disturb her from her 16 hours of solid TV per day. But, I’d have it no other way. We passed boats today full of foreigners but as the only two foreigners on this ship, myself and Riley are being treated to an authentic Chinese experience.

And the Chinese love us, we are interesting to them. As I eat a second meal of instant noodles for the day in the lobby area with Riley I feel like an exhibit in the zoo as a procession of Chinese people (mainly young girls) come up to talk to us and observe us eating. I can’t help but laugh its funny, as is trying my Chinese out on some of the girls on reception - they erupt in a fit of shy giggles every time and disappear from view to regain their composure!

Day 468: Saturday 10th October - Fengdu - ‘the ghost town’

My long craved lie-in is rudely interrupted at 6:30am with a Chinese melody announcing what I can only assume is breakfast. At least it sounds better than the sound of a strangled budgie that was the wake-up call yesterday. I soon roll over and wake up properly at 10am, that’s more like it. I get a knock at 11:30am to tell me that lunch is being served in the ‘restaurant’. I’ve just had a snack and don’t want to eat right now. I’ll wait until we arrive in Fengdu which I’m told is only an hour away. We don’t arrive in Fengdu until 1:30pm as it happens, and this is our one and only chance to get off the boat today.

We have passed into Chongqing municipality overnight from Hubei province and we are about 600km along the 800km journey. The gorges which give the journey its prestige are only on about a 200km section of the journey. Today is more about getting from A to B than the actual quality of the scenery we pass through. The skies are grey and overcast just like yesterday and the river isn’t looking too appealing.
Fengdu is 170km from our disembarkation point at Chongqing and is nicknamed the city of ghosts. It isn’t a ghost town as such but rather a collection of temples, palaces and old streets with a ghost theme. When I thought of China before I had been here I always imagined a mystical side to the country. Fengdu has mystique, an aura of mystery and secrecy. I can’t really point to why; it is just what I feel visiting Fengdu.

Myself and Riley split from the guide and visit the temples alone which is much for the better. We get around quicker and on our way back to the boat ahead of the group we fool around with some of the female staff of another cruise boat who are sat eating noodles. We don some ghost masks from a nearby stall and sit talking to them and pose for pictures! I wonder what they think of these crazy foreigners?

Back on the boat I finally manage to catch the restaurant open at a convenient time, only to be disappointed by what they serve up. The English translations on the menu certainly make for an interesting read. A chill out in the cabin and a final beer and that pretty much brings my Yangtze cruise experience to an end as we will arrive in Chongqing tomorrow at 6:30am. It will also I believe be the last boat journey on my trip. It may not be but I can’t think of another. I look back fondly on all the boat trips that I have taken, every country with the exception of the first, Mexico has involved one. It is one of my favourite ways to travel.

I get the impression that many backpackers miss out on a cruise on the Yangtze River. Maybe it is because they only look into the expensive tour cruise boats? Maybe because you can travel central China from east to west both quicker and cheaper by bus or train? Maybe this area of China isn’t that popular to visit? I don’t know the answer but I would recommend taking the passenger ship from Yichang to Chongqing or vice versa. For 1300 Yuan (£120) I’ve had my own ‘first class’ cabin and both the authentic experience of a Chinese boat journey as well as seeing the gorges up close made it worth it. I wouldn’t describe the gorges as unmissable, I don’t know if that’s the impact of the Three Gorges Dam which since 2003 has raised water levels by 50 metres at the gorges, or the poor weather we’ve had which hasn’t shown the gorges in their best light. Seeing Wu Gorge in the early morning mists was special but it would have been nice if the sun could have shone on Qutang Gorge or whilst we did the excursion to the Three Little Gorges. I wouldn’t make the effort to travel half way across China just to see the Three Gorges but if you’re in the Yangtze River basin and are travelling either west to Chongqing or east to Yichang then I would do it. It has been nice to get away from the cities and enjoy a different pace of life for a few days.

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