Day 305 - Three Gorges Dam

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The morning was taken up with trying to find out if A) a hydrofoil travelled from Yi Chang to Chongqing B) if it went through the 3 Gorges Dam C) where it left from. These questions may appear simple but we had a tough time of it with our limited Mandarin (an incorrectly pronounced ‘thank you’ and that’s it). In the end we bought some tickets still unsure what they entitled us to, but when we pointed to a hydrofoil picture they smiled and said yes which was encouraging.

In the afternoon we visited the 3 Gorges Dam. This is a symbol of immense national pride, at least to China’s rulers, and one of the most impressive feats of engineering in history. It comes with a hefty price tag, both financial and environmental, and controversy to match. Ostensibly the main benefit is flood control - the Yangtze river which it dams is the 3rd biggest in the world and floods regularly with devastating effect - but we suspect the fact that it will generate the same amount of power as 18 nuclear power stations helped the decision to fork out. It will also enable huge ships to ply the river deep into China’s interior to aid trade and therefore future development of some western provinces being left behind by the more dynamic east coast. We think the dam is excellent, in much the same way that building huge towers is excellent - there will always be people who find reason to complain about pet projects but if governments are going to waste money, which they will always do, it’s more fun to waste it on building interesting things than on ways to interfere in people’s lives.

We soon realised our guided tour wasn’t going to feature any English, so we did not find out any new facts about the place. Usually we would have checked out the Wikipedia entry before our visit by unfortunately for some strange reason the Chinese internet censors block it. Thankfully we persevered with some communication problems to establish that we had to be back at the bus at 5:30 - some others (Chinese) didn’t make it and were abandoned in an impressive display of ruthlessness. Similar to the world’s largest already-working dam, the Itaipu in Paraguay/Brazil, the idea is to ride on free buses in between the various viewing points, one for the panoramic view, one for the close-up, another for the lock gates and another couple of exhibitions. It was all very well done and worth a visit, and predictably makes pretty much any other structure look tiny. Our favourite part is a ‘ship elevator’, the details of which we don’t know but it appears to be exactly what it sounds like for ships that can’t be bothered to wait for the many lock gates. As a final thought, what would happen if the dam failed for any reason (earthquake, terrorism, contractors supplying inferior quality concrete as has already been found to have happened…)? Apparently the city of Yi Chang where we are staying would be wiped out along with the entire population in under an hour. By the way, the population of Yi Chang is 4 or 5 million and growing.

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