The Yangtze River: 23-29 May

From Chengdu it's a relatively short journey to Chongqing, 2 hours on the new fast trains, the city is the start point for cruises down the Yangtze through the Three Gorges. There are numerous cruise options that all stop at the main sights, from ferries with dormitories to fully-fledged cruise ships, some of which cover the full 2400km to Shanghai. We opted for somewhere in the mid-range; one of the cheaper cruise ships doing the shorter route from Chongqing to Yichang near the new Three Gorges Dam, taking three nights.

We had only meant to spend one night in Chongqing, but we were corresponding back and forth with a cruise company and ended up staying an extra night as we finally booked a cabin, giving us time to look around parts of the city.

The centre of Chongqing is on a hilly peninsula formed by the confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze rivers, but expands over bridges to form a massive city – the biggest in western China with 2m people living on the peninsula alone and more than 10m in the high-rise suburbs. The city is likened to Hong Kong and Manhattan due to the high-rises and watery surrounds, but has nowhere near the style or glamour of either of those two places! We found the part of the peninsula we were staying on to resemble a massive building site as old buildings are swept aside and new shiny towers constructed. Chongqing played the role of capital during the Japanese invasion of World War 2 and was heavily bombed. Many of the buildings seem to date from that post-war period, hence the rapid replacement with newer high-tech structures. There is a massive contrast as you walk off of the new main roads downhill through the alley-ways and staircases that wind through the older, poorer, cramped settlements to the river. A fascinating walk if a little uncomfortable. The occasional vendor selling pig trotters and snouts and the odd well-fed rat scurrying past add to the atmosphere!

The weather was hot and dry (we seem to have left the rain behind again) and there was very little breeze coming off of the rivers. Combined with the steep hills and smoggy pollution the city seems to be encased in (you can barely see across the river at times), it wasn't the most pleasant place to walk around. We were glad to get on board the boat and looking forward to fresher air downstream.

We boarded at 5pm, finding our cabin to be surprisingly spacious, and cast-off at around 9pm when we went up on deck to watch the city lights pass by. We sailed through the night and by breakfast time we were moored up at a place called Fengdu, 170km or so downstream from Chongqing. We were allocated the same seats for all of our meals, sat with an Aussie couple in their 60s and a younger couple from Shropshire. There was one other table of English-speaking passengers and one of Germans, the vast majority being Chinese.

Our first excursion ashore at Fengdu involved touring the new temples being constructed on the hillside. Fengdu is dubbed as a ghost city for two reasons (neither of them particularly good ones!) and the temples and tour guides play up to that. Most recently the town had to be vacated due to the rising waters caused by the dam some way downstream from here, leaving behind a real ghost-town. That town is underwater now though and the people relocated elsewhere, so we didn't get to see any of that. The original reason for the ghostly-associations was a bit garbled, but we gathered that the town was named after 2 notable citizens whose names together form the name of the King of the Dead. The new temples being built on the hillsides play up to this with statues of various ghost/demon like people, although there is a serious temple dedicated to the King of the Dead where people do come to worship – in the Taoist religion it's the King of the Dead that decides whether you've been good and can go to heaven or whether you have to stay with him in the underworld. Outside the temple there were some gruesomely imaginative statues demonstrating the various physical tortures you might be subjected to if you've been bad..

Back on board we decided not to go on the optional afternoon excursion and instead enjoyed the fine weather up on deck where we caught the sun a bit too much! It wasn't until the next morning that we reached the first of the Three Gorges, the hills and cliffs rising up impressively on either side of the ship, despite the fact that the dam has raised water-levels by some 80-100 metres. We passed through two of the gorges before arriving at the city of Badong where we transferred to a smaller boat for an excursion up the Shenong Stream, one of the Yangtze's tributaries and a picturesque canyon.

When the stream became too narrow, we transferred again to wooden 'pea-pod' boats that the local minority people used to use on the stream before the dam was built, when it was far smaller and filled with rocky rapids. They demonstrated how they used to have to manually pull the boats by rope from the shore, upstream through the rapids that have since disappeared. It's quite sad to see how much the dam has affected their way of life, villages having to be relocated and practices that have been in place for years now just being maintained for tourists. On the other hand, with such horrendous pollution it is important that China develops more 'green' solutions to their massive energy requirements (even though the primary reason for the dam was flood-control as opposed to power generation - apparently). Quite a conundrum.

Aside from the excursions, life on board revolved around mealtimes – a buffet breakfast (thankfully with some western additions) and a Chinese lunch and dinner; easily the best Chinese food we've had so far. Although there were only 6 of us on our table that could seat 10, we were receiving the same amount of food as those around us and always had far more than we needed. We were feeling very well fed by the end of the cruise! Evenings consisted of a crew performance of various traditional dances on the 2nd night and a 'talent-show' on the last night consisting of various Chinese karaoke performances, games and crew performances. Early nights beckoned for us!

Overnight on the third night we passed through the 5-stage lock system that allows boats to pass from one side of the dam to the other and when we awoke we were moored up and after breakfast left on our final excursion to the dam itself.

Some of the facts and figures associated with the dam are impressive – at 2309m across it's the biggest dam in the world (although not the highest) and can supply power as far away as Beijing when the turbines are working during the wet season. Thanks to the morning haze we could
only see about a third of the way across the dam and you can't walk along the top; they seem pretty serious about security and they're still building on top of the dam anyway, including a boat-elevator that will be able to lift smaller boats over the top of the dam to save them the 4-5 hours it takes to pass through the massive locks, which were actually the most impressive part to look at – each one being some 200m long.

We had time for lunch on board before disembarking where we hoped to catch a taxi into the town of Yichang where we'd booked a hotel for the night as we hadn't arranged any onward travel. There were no official taxis which meant we had to haggle with the locals for a lift, so were probably nicely ripped off, but at least we got dropped at the door of our hotel. After checking in we headed out to book our train tickets for the following day to Shanghai. Even though we booked our train tickets a day in advance there were no beds left on the train to Shanghai, so we're facing the prospect of 15hr overnight journey in small hard seats. Oh well, all part of the fun apparently!!

Hope you are all well,
Dan & Sue