YangtzeRiver Cruise- Day one/two

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Day one: Our cruise down the Yangtze River was amazing. We started out on Monday morning 5:40 a.m. to catch a flight from Dalian to Wuhan - about a 2 hour flight. There we were met by a guide who took the 4 of us (Gail, Rick, Peter and Dianne) by a small bus to the city of Yi Chang, about a 4 hour trip. The ride went by quickly, watching the small farms with water buffalo, ducks, fishing ponds, lots of farmers working their fields by hand.


When we arrived at Yi Chang, we were met by a guide who showed us the city for several hours until we could board the boat at 5:00. After dropping our bags off and finding our rooms on the boat, we ventured back into the city for supper. We wandered the central area until we found the 'food' street with many outdoor vendors and small restaurants, settling on one that had pictures on the menu. After eliminating snakes head, eel and intestines, we ordered beef, chicken and eggplant dishes. It is always an adventure when you go out to eat. The pictures on the menus help, but it is always a bit of a risk. For example when ordering chicken, it could be anything from the head to the feet in the dish! Luckily all turned out to be delicious.




Day two: after breakfast and Tai Chi, we watched the river on our way to Ba Dong, site of the Three Gorges Dam. The scenery along the way was breathtaking and easy to imagine this area as it was for the past several hundred years.

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Photos

lunch in small noodle shop
Hot pickled radishes and the wonderful smiles of the owners made this noodle shop a great lunch stop in Yi Chang. We spent about 4 hours in the city, saw a musesum dedicated to relics dug up due to the dam construction, toured a small embroidery shop and then headed to the boat.

Noodle Shop Owners
These people were happy to have foreigners come to their shop and loved having their photos taken. We ate noodles with vegetables - a large bowl for less than 50 cents each.

Silk embroidery shop
Girls traditionally started needle work at about age 6, and worked to provide a chest of goods to show their new mother-in-law how worthy they were. Today it is not the same, but these young were very talented. Most embroiders only work until age 30, then their eyesight gives out and they become teachers of the art.

lockers
large stores all provide lockers to put your previously purchased goods in. Check out the sponsor of these lockers!

Yangtze Paradise
Heading down the pier to the boat - no red tape, just get on board! This ship is very typical of the cruise ships on the river. It holds about 250 people, but because of the National Holiday and Moon Festival, most people are at home with their families. We had only 28 passengers on board. Wilsons and us were the only passengers on the whole of deck five!

Covered walkway
Rick got this picture of what appears to be a very old covered bridge built into the side of the hill. Kind of like the Roger's Pass slide tunnels!

Temple
We are not sure if this is an original temple or a recontructed one. Not much survived the Cultural revolution, and much that did in this area has been moved or reconstructed on higher ground due to the raised water level of the dam.

Ship Building
There are hundreds of ships on the river, many of which carry coal, the major fuel used in China.With the water level still rising, coal production is in high gear. Many of the coal mines will be flooded with the final water height, so they are mining and storing the coal as fast as they can. Now that the dam is complete, boats can travel from Shanghai to Chong Quin. This ship building yard caught us by surprise being in a small town along the river.

The Five Sep Locks
Boats will be able to pass the dam in one of two ways. First (and free) are the locks. It is a 5 step system as you can see in the picture. At least 6 boats the size of ours can go in at one time. Because of all the steps, the process takes 3-4 hours, but was fascinating to watch.
The second way (and not free) is a ship lift, which is still under construction. Boats under 3000 tons will literally be lifeted up and over the dam. Although there is a charge, the time saving will be valuable.

In the Locks
There were 6 ships in the lock with us. Very interesting process to see those large gates open and close.

Final Step
The last step on the prcess and we are underway again.

New Digs
Because there were so few passengers, Rick negotiated a new room for us - the Presidential suite! We had the front room with full glass windows, large bedroom with king-sized bed, flat screen tv - all for a steal of a deal. We didn't spend a lot of time here, but the extra room was great.

Terraced landscape
All the houses have been relocated in the last 10 years. The water level has risen about 140 meters in this area. We were fascinated by the terraced plots of land. It is all rocky and steep - hard to imagine any of us in the west using these methods. You can't see it from most of the pictures, but new roads have been built close the top of most of the hills. All houses have electricity - there are power poles in amazing places!

Sanpan
People still travel the river in small boats such as this.

End of the Day
The scenery was beautiful - sunset early - so we enjoyed heading west into the sunset every evening.

Captain's Dinner
First evening was dinner with the Captain, who didn't actually eat dinner with us, but gave a speech (translated by Ben, our river guide).

Party Time
Rick got 'volunteered' for a rousing game of musical chairs. The party evening was always fun- crew provided dances, games, and free dancing.

Good Night
End of the day was always up on the top deck to watch the moon coming up.