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Approaching the Yangtse river Dam at Sunset
When finished, will be able to supply electricity to half of China's population. Gorges, Mah Jong & One Big Bloody Dam
The more adventurous amongst us - (Yvette) made a mangement decision on behalf of the group to take the public bus to our sleeper train (from Guilin to Yi Chin) where we boarded the "Luxury Yangtzee River Cruise Liner". This decision was greeted with some disdain from the group but these non-believers were forced to eat their words you will be pleased to hear!
As public bus journeys go, this ranks amongst my top 3. Imagine an clapped out old mini bus for 12 people with numerous ruck sacks taking up the front seats. Add 8 Gaijin, 1 driver, a bus conductor who screams and shouts (pulling the public onto the bus whilst the bus is still moving) and 8 more locals and you start to get the picture. Not quite.... Add live stock and I mean LIVE STOCK - 3 chickens with their legs bound, hanging upside down and squawking in anticipation of their their new home - the oven. Finally, add 1 very cruel local and a dog in a bag - This was not a Woolworths bag and the dog was not this mans "best friend"
I can assure you, it was his dinner.................a truly Chinese experience!
The only boat I have been on is the rowing boat in the Pavillion Gardens so I was excited about the prospect of 2 days on the Yangtzee and what a pleasure this turned out to be. Nothing to do except sit down, read, watch the world go by and sleep. We boarded the "Cruise Liner" after having our photo's taken with numerous locals (for their photo albums) and started to "Chill Winston"! We cruised down the river and transited through a couple of dams - The largest being the aptly named "Yangtzee River Dam" - This really is a feat of modern day engineering covering countless square miles of land, displacing 1 million + chinese farmers and various ethnic minority groups and all in the name of evolution. The cynics amongst us will question the economic benefit versus the social and ecological cost but given that China is one of the worlds largest users of coal and therfore one of the largest contributors to global warming, a dam that can provide "clean" electricity to 650 million people must have it's benefits I guess. Unfortunately, we didn't see
the main dam site as a Chinese Politician was visiting the site and the land lord had closed the doors to the public. Communism at its best! We were also awoken at 2am by a brass band outside our window. Yes, the local band had come out to welcome our Chinese friends who were going ashore to visit night markets and temples - They are an interesting bunch in their white and red caps, herded together to "have fun" by their tour leaders. Lovely people overall and always smile at you after they have stared at you for a minute or two without blinking or saying a word!
The next day we joined a smaller vessel and cruised down the Shen Nong stream and it's amazing gorges which is due to be flooded when the dam is complted in 2009. We saw 2000+ year old coffins hanging in caves in the rocks - Amazing as the people who placed the coffins in the caves would have been some seriously good rock climbers! Later, we joined a smaller kayak and rowed further up the river , the highlight being our guide "Little Dick" cranking out a "locals song" to his
audience on the kayak - No laughing please we are British after all and he was rubbish too! Later that day we learned to play Mah Jong which was alot of fun and were all left in tears after a 50 year old Chinese "Lady" who was watching us, let rip with a fart that all the boys would have been proud of!
So all in all, the two days of R&R were great and just what we needed. Here's to the Yangtzee and all that sail on her!
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turtle
non-member comment
Is that you dressed up as a policewoman, Yvette?