Down the Mighty Yangtze & the 3 Big and the 3 Little Gorges

Most Three Gorge tours start in Chongqing (used to be Chunking before Mao started changing things. Short history lesson: (source, LP) In 1958 the Chinese adopted a system of writing their language using the Roman alphabet, known as pinyin. The original idea was to eventually do away with characters. However, tradition dies hard, and the idea was abandoned. Nowadays most don't even know how to use it. This shouldn't surprise us. We can't even make the switch to the metric system, which the whole world, other than us, uses. Sounds, though that have helped me: Q=ch, and ZH=j and X=sh as in ship, Z-'dz' and in suds. You may not even need that much information, though, or care. But, currently, I am in Qingdao....Chingdao....old spelling Tsingtao= good chinese beer!!

As I said in the last blog the cheap flights that I got in on from Kunming from Lijiang were not available the opposite way. So, I took a bus to Kunming. Am glad I did. The scenery was marvelous. It is the season for the rape plant to blossom (think, canola oil) and the hillsides and valleys were filled with green rice fields, and yellow rape fields. PLus, the cherry and plum trees and other spring flowers were blooming. Yunnan provinence is beautiful country, more mountainous and less populated than in the east part of China. Planes are nice, but it is not a way to really see a country. I spent the night at a hostel right in the heart of Kunming (called 'The Hump'...wonder how they translate that into Chinese). Then the next day, I flew into Wanzhou. Kunming looked like a very pleasant city, one easy to live in. But, my goal is as few cities as possible.

Back to Chongqing. The LP says that the first part of the three gorges cruise is totally missable and suggests taking a three hour bus ride down river to Wanzhou and starting there. Although, most tours are 3 days on cruise ships start in Chongqing, my capacity for oooing and aaahing goes only so far and I figured three days was probably two too many. There is an alternative. A hydrofoil travels the area from Chongqing to Yichang, where the dam is. It is meant for real people, traveling for non-pleasure. Because of this, most are all sitting down, sleeping or watching a movie and the few who want to see the scenery can stand at the open doors on the side. So, I decided, since I was coming from Yunnan (Kunming), I'd just fly into Wanzhou and start my trip there, a normal hydrofoil stop. Seems reasonable, right!

Finding a place to stay in Wanzhou was an 'interesting' job. One night, a gal I met in Lijiang, Mary, and I spent at least an hour on two different computers looking for a place to stay in Wanzhou. And, in her previous line of work, that is what she did, trace down things. But, we had no luck. Fortunately, I mentioned this to Susie and Tao when we went on our trip (the Chinese couple I met on the plane to Lijiang). He borrowed someone's computer and searched the Web in Chinese. He finally found one..and only one (folks, we are talking about a city of 2 million, here!). He wrote down the name, address (in Chinese) and telephone and Shaoher, the manager in Lijiang, made me a reservation there. You would think that if the LP is recommending people not bother with the Chongqing to Wanzhou part, that they would have a couple of recommendations of places to stay in Wanzhou. Not so. I flew into town with the information in Chinese, and has been my luck so many times, there was a young man who knew exactly where the hotel was and stayed with me on the bus from the airport and got off with me and escorted me clear to the hotel. His English was so poor that I thought he said he was staying there also, but once he got me there, off he went to wherever he was headed. Gees, I love these people!


Besides the Three Gorges on the main river, from a town down stream, Wushan, after you take the hydrofoil through the first gorge, it is highly recommended that you take the time to go through what they call the Little Three Gorges. Since I didn't know when I left Lijiang anything about hydrofoil times (although I knew the total time from Wanzhou to the end, Yichang was 7 hours) or the Little 3 Gorges tour times, I sort of had to wing it...and you have all heard how I love doing that - as far as coming into a town without reservations. I took the early morning hydrofoil from Wanzhou through the first Gorge. Beautiful, misty morning and it worked just like the LP said, the only people I had to share the doorway space with were guys grabbing a smoke...and even they seemed to mostly migrate to the other side, once they saw me there. Got to Wushan plenty early to get a ticket on one of the many afternoon tours down the Little Three Gorges.

Realized by this time we wouldn't be returning from the afternoon tour until six-ish which meant a night in Wushan. These guys on the dock who hustled me and sold me tickets on the afternoon tour (which leaves when the cruise tour boats from Chungqing arrive), got me a place to leave my bags (in a little shop, for a few yuan) and they got me a hotel that they assured me was okay. (I must admit that until that boat showed up and I was on it, I wasn't too sure about these guys). Plus, I had a guy who was carrying my bags on a long pole and he said he would be back and help me up the stairs to the taxi.

The tours through the Little Three Gorges is special. It is definitely more beautiful (in my opinion) than the regular three gorges. Possibly it is because the little river makes everything closer to the rock walls and the farms with the terraced rice paddies traveling up the steep slopes. It is probably more where people have farmed for thousands of years and the towns have been on the main river. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip and by afternoon the sun was out. In the first part, we were in bigger ships and I immediately went topside and got myself stationed in the back where no one was in front of me (or maybe I should more accurately say, 'behind me', since I was facing backwards) so I could see everything. This time they had little tables and chairs, so I got to sit when I wasn't wandering around. Then, we got to a place where we were going into even narrower water, so they put us in these 6 across long boats and took us to a town that had been rebuilt in the old Qing (q=ch....Ching) dynasty way. PLus, this was also a place where they had made a new town high above the river for the people whose land/farms/houses had been flooded. (I have this piece of information that I can't remember where it came from - so far they have resettled 1.5 million people as a result of this dam.) The old Qing village was a nice tourist attraction and probably something to employ some of the resettled people, but the real housing was kind of stark. Tall white apartment buildings without any character. I think one would have to come back in 10 years to see what happens to the places. Right now they look a little sad. But, as in all of China, at the ground level of every building...big or small...there are always shops. This was no difference. Little shops were open and old men were outside playing cards or marjong. If anyone can bring a city to life, it'll be the Chinese. Ten years from now the buildings will all have neon signs and there will be a dozen night markets around.

I am so glad I made the trip. You, who have already been on these tours probably saw a lot more than I, but you who go in five years might not see much at all. The dam is finished and they are flooding the area as I sit here and write.

You ought to have seen both of these towns I stayed in, boy, they are ready for that water to rise. It must be at last the better part of a km to the top (so are all the rest of the river towns...that expect to be around after the water rises). You only have to go about a third of that to where a taxi will haul you the rest of the way. I felt a bit like I was in the hands of some con-artists, but I didn't have much choice. As it turned out, that hotel was not so nice. The carpet had hundreds of burn marks and was filthy, but, the sheets were clean and I took a shower and got directly in bed - and was out of the place in 8 hours.

Before doing this, I dropped my bags and went down to find some dinner....quickly. The Chinese are very early eaters. The night before I was suddenly made re-aware of this fact. I had had one place refuse me at 8:00 pm because they were closing and ended up at a place where some other cruise people who had just eaten. When they left I was the last one there and the crew were washing floors and turning out lights...not liesurely dining. This night I was also the last customer (and it was before 8:00 pm) in this tiny little hole-in-the-wall place and ended up eating my order as the family was eating theirs. This is one thing about the Chinese, they eat early. I remember that the 'cafeteria' type places that we used get a lot of meals from in Taiwan, put out their food at 4:30...and they did not put it in heating trays (it was cooked properly when it went into the pan to sell and was not going to be cooked one more minute. You got hot rice and you put your luke-warm food over the hot rice or you took it home and nuked it.)

What I actually meant to tell you, before I started in about not counting on late dining in this country, is that as I left the hotel, I had to tell the desk something. I looked back at the room rates posted on the wall behind reception. Some of those rates were 'by the hour'. I think that pretty well describes the quality of the place where I spent my one night in Wushan.

The second day cruising through the last two gorges was lovely. Again, spent my time at the open door area (closed on the bottom half so I (or some equally clumbsy passenger) didn't topple out.) This whole China thing has just been a 'click click' heaven. I love these new digital cameras. One of my big chores at night is going through all my pictures from that day and deletling about 2/3 or more of them. And, of course, the gorge trips were a shutterbugs delight.

While I was standing there the second day on the hydrofoil, at some point, this young man came up and started talking to me. He's a university student and was just taking a little break to do some sightseeing. It turns out he was going to Wuhan.....surprise, so was I. My plan was to catch transportation from Yichang at the end of the hydrofoil's journey to Wuhan and get a train to Shanghai. He had his itinerary all figured out and we were both heading for the train station as soon as we got in and taking a 2:40 train to Wuhan. (We arrived about 1:00). It did mean missing the tour of the dam, I hope that wasn't a mistake. But, I have toured more than one dam in my life, so I risked missing this one. We got to the train station and I said...'Why don't we just ask if they happen to have something to Shanghai." When your hot, your hot! There was an overnight train with a lower berth available leaving in 1/2 hour. Can you believe that. So, off I was before I almost before I could turn around and thank the young guy. We were both surprised that it happened so fast .....and the next stop will be the world's 1st of 2nd biggest city, Shanghai. (Tokyo is the other I believe and I can never remember which is 1st and which is 2nd...not that it is much of a 'title' to be aspiring to).

---

---