Three Gorges
Friday, March 30th, 2007Wow, these days feel so long! I got up at 6:30am today for the free Tai chi lesson but I was a little late… by the time I was all ready, we were sailing into the first of the Three Gorges. The first gorge is called Qutang Gorge… and at 6:45am, it is quite stunning. The mountains on either side of the gorge are very high and an intriguing combination of shear rock and dense greenery. The “fog” (better known as smog) wasn’t as thick this morning so we could actually see further down the river. Our river guide, Curtis, gave a nice little commentary as we sailed through this gorge (although, I was still half asleep…). The first gorge is actually quite small so it only took us about a half hour to sail through it.
After a spectacular breakfast, we boarded onto a smaller boat to see the “Lesser Three Gorges” which is an area that branches off the Yangtze River onto what’s called the Daning River. The smaller boat took us downstream for about an hour, passing many more beautiful mountains and also many small farms and homes. It’s sad knowing that in a couple of years, those peoples homes will be under water. On one of the farms, the government actually erected a waterlevel sign (showing how high the water will be), and the sign is pretty much on top of a farmers house!
Down on the Daning River, we transfered to an even smaller boat and went down what they call the “Lesser Lesser Three Gorges” (They are so creative). This is the area where they used to have trackers pull the small boats up the river because it was so shallow. Trackers, if you’ve never heard of them, are men who actually use a rope, strung around their shoulder or body to pull boats up the narrow waterway. And back in the day, the men used to do this naked… so there are many postcards from this region capturing the naked butts of these men pulling boats up the river. Unfortunately, since they already started flooding the area in 2003, the water levels are now high enough for boats to run on thier own up these streams and we were not blessed with the site of some naked butts.
So, we made our way out of the Lesser Lesser Three Gorges, to the Lesser Three Gorges and then finally back out to the Three Gorges to continue our journey to the second Gorge, Wu Gorge.
Wu Gorge starts at a huge bridge that we sailed under…. however, this bridge will be destroyed and built higher before the flood in 2009… so I guess it’s something that I will never see again. I didn’t find Wu Gorge as spectacular as the first gorge… the mountains aren’t as high and the smog seemed to thicken a bit so the scenery wasn’t as clear. Regardless, it was beautiful and Curtis gave another great commentary, pointing out the hanging coffins and all the obscure images people see in the rocks… like rocks shaped like Buddha, or Goddess Peak (basically looks like a small rock on top of the mountain). There were lots of cool caves though.
And as I type this out, we are about 5 minutes away from the last of the three gorges. With that said, i should head up to the top of the ship so I don’t miss Curtis’ commentary. Will let you know how the rest of this cruise goes later!
cheng.ev