Cat & I just finished our tour of the Three Gorges on the Yangzi River. Wow what an experience. Now when I said to some of you that we were going on a three day cruise, don’t take that in the literal sense.
We booked our tickets on Sunday in Chongqing and left at 8pm on Sunday night. We were really excited. When we boarded we wondered what we had let ourselves in for! We were shown to our cabin that had three sets of bunk beds in, we were to share with a Chinese couple and two Chinese old men! The small bathroom was dirty and smelt worse than anything I have experienced before. After spending four months in SE Asia you’d think I’d be used to this but Chinese squat toilets beat anything in SE Asia hands down!
We ate in the dining cart – we soon discovered we were the only westerners on the whole ship and everyone just sat there staring at us! The food wasn’t great but was edible and we decided on an early night. No such luck! One of the guys snored all night!! Then to top it off we were woken at 4.30am. We were told to be ready for 6am for the first stop, Fengdu, so were NOT impressed at having to wake up at 4.30am!!
Set atop a mountain in Fengdu was the Abode of Ghosts that is said to be the place of devils. There was numerous temples with sculptures of demons and devils with names like ‘Between the living and the dead’ ‘Bridge if helplessness’ and ‘Palace of the king of hell’. The temples contained myths and Chinese beliefs of what happens in the after life. It was hilarious being shifted around in a huge Chinese tourist group (you know the kind) everyone wearing red caps and following a flag. Cat and I were not used to this after traveling and visiting tourist spots by ourselves. We couldn’t understand a word coming from the tour guide with the annoying megaphone so we were rebels and escaped the group.
Next stop was the Stone Treasure Stockade which was basically a 12 storey 56m high wooden temple built on a huge rock. It wasn’t great and walking up the 200 steps to reach it hardly seemed worth it, we were starting to wonder if we’d made a mistake taking this trip. There was a couple that seemed to be following us around, and we kept getting in the way of their photographs. I later discovered that they wanted a picture of me. They finally plucked up the courage to ask and I posed with the wife. We then realized that they had been pretending to take photos of each other but hoping to get us in shot and we were moving and saying ‘oops sorry’ – how funny!
Another night on the boat and we were starting to feel disheartened. The boat was very basic but also very dirty. There was nowhere to go except the tiny cabin or up on deck and the smell in the bathroom was getting worse!
Next morning we were to be up at 7 ready to leave at 7.30am for the tour of the three gorges. Again we were woken at 5am! Why??
It was quite foggy and we were grumpy but by the time we reached the first gorge, Qutang Gorge, the sun had come out the fog had cleared and it was breathtaking! We were worried that because of the Three Gorges Dam project and the consequent rising water that the peaks wouldn’t be as dramatic – but they were. We saw monkeys in the trees it was funny hearing all the Chinese oohing and aaring. We cruised along through the gorge until we came to the Little Three Gorges where we swapped to a small boat. These gorges were much narrower than their larger counterparts. And we could see the rock formations up close. By now the sun was quite warm and the water was a beautiful colour. The tour took a couple of hours than it was back onto the ship. Next we passed through Wu Gorge. It was about 40km in length and the cliffs on either side rise to just over 900km, topped by sharp, jagged peaks.
The last gorge Xiling Gorge was the longest of the three and took a few of hours to pass through. Just before the end the massive three gorges dam project loomed up. At the end of the gorge everyone crowed on the deck to watch the boat pass through the locks of the huge Gezhou Dam.
By this time everyone had gotten used to us and we were very popular with the kids on board. I had posed for numerous photographs over the day, everyone wanted a picture of the farang but were too shy to ask. We taught a little lad how to play snap! Everyone was fascinated with my blonde hair and I became known as the girl with the yellow hair. Someone asked for a photo and everyone went in for the kill, Cat stood there in hysterics as I posed for about 50 photographs! One young guy plucked up the courage to say a few words to us, and as I answered I could feel 80 pairs of eyes on me as they surrounded me on the deck it was scaring me to death – Cat thought it was hilarious! I turned around at one point and there was a least ten camera phones pointed at me! I have never known anything like it in my life!
What an experience. After all our doubts, we had a good time and it was very different. We left by taxi and everyone else piled onto a bus – all waving like mad through the windows. It was sad to say goodbye and they’d just gotten used to the strange foreigners on their boat aswell.