Day 7

Yangtze River Cruise

Date - 9 May

Weather - Sunny, very warm

Accommodation - "Yangtze Gold Three"


It's hard to believe that we have only been on the tour for seven days. We have seen and done so much and it has been a terrific tour so far. 


This was our first full day on the Yangtze River and we had an excellent day. The boat moored twice, one for the Water Village in the morning and in the afternoon we moored to take a coach tour of the impressive Three Gorges Dam Project.


I woke up at 4.30am to see a small partially lit city passing by. By 5.30am it was light enough to see that from our cabin balcony we were coming into a very large lock. It was very exciting so we quickly got dressed and raced to the top deck and watched the proceedings as we followed two long gravel barges into the empty loch. We didn't think we would fit but like everything else in China all is big and we fitted in quite easily. 



At 6.30am we slowly rose to the top of the loch with the high concrete walls either side of us.  As we rose I decided to attend the early morning Tai Chi class. It was the first one I have done and I really enjoyed it. There were about forty of us trying to emulate our master. 


The scenery changed dramatically after we came out of the loch and we passed high cliffs with small waterfalls and heavily wooded mountains dotted with little houses and small garden plots. It was dramatic and beautiful. The long barges continued to be plentiful along this section of the Yangtze. 



At 8.30am our boat slowly moored alongside the Water Village and we left the boat at 9.15am for our village tour. It involved a lot of walking (about 10km) as the area is a reconstruction of a traditional village which was located on the banks and tributary of the Yangtze River.  In some ways it could be described as a theme park but much more tasteful. 



The Chinese were dressed in colourful traditional costumes and played various roles such as a fisherman, a washerwoman etc. There was a traditional wedding with beautiful costumes and Andrew, a member of our group and 6ft 4ins, was chosen as the groom. It was very funny as he was head and shoulders above the "bride and bridal party". He had to dress in the groom's costume and we were all in stitches as he played the part. 



We all took countless photos of the beautiful wooded setting throughout the morning and thought the tour was excellent. We returned to our boat via the local ferry and as it was 12.30pm we went straight to our Chinese buffet lunch. 


At 2.15pm we took a coach tour to the nearby Three Gorges Dam Project. We had a project guide for the afternoon and he has been a guide for 19 years. He was relocated along with another 1.3m people in the late nineties to make way for the dam and as he said "there are two sides to the coin" as they got a new apartment with a bathroom and stayed close to their friends. Forty percent of total construction budget of 30 billion was allocated to moving people. The people now may be relocated again if they build a parallel set of locks. There are also plans for a further twenty dams along the Yangtze in twenty years. There is construction everywhere!


The infrastructure of the Three Gorges Dam Project is massive and we took a series of escalators to get to the observation point to overlook the five locks and the dam.




Previously there were 700 steps to climb and we were thankful we didn't have to climb the stairs as it was a hot afternoon. The dam serves a number of purposes - flood control, power, shipping movement and tourism. On the way back to our boat the guide played the mouth organ and we sang along. It was very amusing. 


After dinner and before the Captain's Welcome Reception our boat moved into Lock No. 1 which was enormous. We shared the lock with two long gravel boats and it took forty-five minutes to complete the process in each lock. We rose very quickly in each of the locks and we were in awe of the engineering involved. There were five locks in a row which had to be completed and after the final lock the boat had risen 100 metres. It was a very efficient process and we could understand how 150 boats go through the lock system each day. 


It was another great day! 


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