The 3 gorges cruise


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Asia » China » Chongqing » Chongqing
April 7th 2006
Published: April 9th 2006
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Hi,

I have just returned from a great cruise on the Yangtze river from Chongqing to Yichang for about 4 days.
As I was proceeding east, the clear sky of the mountains of Sichuan and Yunan are replaced with hazy and polluted sky as east China is very industrial.
As part of this massive industrialization, the Chinese are in the process of building a huge dam on the river that upon completion, in 2009, will be the biggest in the world. 5,000 thousands people are currently working in this project around the clock.
The dam will cuase the river to be wider and higher so the 3 gorges will not be as high as before. This is why it was an opportuntity for me to see the 3 gorges before they are gone. The river has already gone up since the dam is built gradually and people were already relocated. Upon completion, a total of 2 millions people will be relocated.
On the river banks, there are signs of the final height of the water above sea level. If there are houses below them, their habitants will be relocated. It looks like this going to be a great site for scubidiving: cities and villages underwater.
Chongqing and many other cities on the way are very gray and gloomy. They seem to be like the European cities of the industrial revolution of the 19th century used to be. The sky are normally hazy becuase lots of pollution which has more affect on the scenary. China is the #1 poluter in the world. Chongqing and other cities on the way are much nicer at nigh time than at day time. On the other hand, the villages on the way are much nicer.
Out of about 400 people on the boat, only 9 were non-Chinese. There was one couple from Singapore but until they approached me, I included them with the Chinese so maybe there were some more non-Chinese that I did not recognize as such. It is always so nice to meet tourists from Singapore. They like Israel a lot becuase of our strong commercial relations with them.
The boat was a very simple one. Like a sleeper bus. To almost all of the offered excusrions on the beach that, we, the forginers, refused. Another Budha? Another temple? We are fed up. However, almost all the Chinse people went obediently to all the shore excursions after the guide with the flag.
So the 3 gorges are indeed beautiful and impressive. There was also an excursion to the small 3 gorges that to explore them we were tranferred to a smaller boat and afterwards to a more smaller boat. To this excursion, we had no choice but to follow the Chinese guide with the flag and to feel like part of a big herd. But this was worth it.
In the other shore excursion that we have joined, we visited a new and modern neighborhood where the evacuated people are relocated. The guide, although speaking in Chinese, seemed to be very proud of this place. They even planted there some palm trees made of plastic. To complete the picture they even housed there some plastic birds.
However, no doubt that the highlight of the cruise was man made (the dam) and not nature made (the 3 gorges). The dam is so enormus and impressive. If to be more specific, the passage through the locks, this was the highlight. One could really feel the might of the dam.
Since the river after the dam is much lower then before the dam, the boats pass through 5 sections of locks and by closing and opening the locks, the water go down and the boats are floating and going down with the water. The 5 sections are about 1.5 km long and it took us about 3.5 hours to pass this distance. Among us, there were some other boats that passed together with us and this is another reason that it took a long time. The passage was at night, from about 22:00 to 1:30 and with all the ship and the surrounding illuminated this was a very besutiful scenary to watch and I could not go to sleep until we passed the last lock. After all, not every day do I sail through locks.

Bye, Sharon



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