Yangtze River Cruise - Gorge Wu and Gorge Qatang and smaller boat cruise

Today we woke up to the ship not moving.  I over slept Thai Chi today, I went yesterday and liked it, but did not set my alarm for this morning for 6:30 class.  When we looked outside we realized we had made it up the 5 step locks over night, but that is it, we hadn't gone any further.  Come to find out the river has been closed due to fog, so now we have an itinerary change.  We need to wait for the river to open again, and our tour has been changed from this morning to this afternoon.  So what is left to do?  We meet our friends at the bar for a mimosa. 

Main dining room where we at breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets on the cruise

Restaurant where you could pay extra for western meal, we passed on this, but beautiful plates

Mimosa time!

The fog is starting to lift a little, we can see that there are lots of mountains around us, it is very mystical, but we wish it would clear up a little more.

We also have a silk scarf tying demonstration, they looked really pretty if you were tiny, wearing a silk dress and Chinese, no purchase made by me.  It is amazing what you will do to pass the time while you are on a cruise ship. 

Hoping for the fog to lift a little more, but still pretty scenery

Taken from our balcony, all cabins have balconies on this small ship

We saw goats a few times while on the cruise

Lots of new cars being shipped

These markers were all along the river, they light up at night.  Would be fun to climb the ladders for maintenance

Lots of beautiful scenery, topped today by a boat excursion down the Goddess Stream.  We are split up into groups of about 25 people on each small boat and taken down a narrow gorge.  We are explained again about how this has only been created in the last 10 years when the dam was made, and 1.3 million people were displaced when their homes were flooded.  Really is amazing, the gov't relocated everyone, but it must have been so difficult at the time to leave your homes that you may have had for generations, most of these homes are in the country.

Like on an ocean cruise there are photographers everywhere trying to take your picture to sell them to you later.  At least these were not printed, all digital

Small boats lined up for our excursion

So happy that the fog had mostly lifted by this time, it was gorgeous in here

We go through the second gorge, Wu gorge, right after we board the ship again, beautiful once again.  I am sure pictures aren't going to do this justice.

Our tiny balcony, but it does the trick!

Passed by quite a few new bridges that locals can now use to cross the river

Nearer the end of our cruise we started to pass some very large cities

Off to supper and an announcement is made that we are now passing through the most beautiful 3^rd gorge, thanks for letting us know, it is pitch black outside and we can't see a thing.  Oh well, the rain held off today, and we have seen beautiful scenery pretty much the entire day.  It really is hard to believe that 10 years ago this entire section was a small stream, no way would these cruise ships have been able to pass through.

We are now back in the room having a glass of wine before heading off to the guest talent show in the lounge.  We have seen one group of Spanish, and one group of French practising, will be interesting to see what happens.  We of course are part of the group that is not participating, we are in the exact correct group for us!

Talent show, um, glad it is over.  Believe it or not I had a couple of naps again, and we did not stay until the end, Andre says we saw 3 1/2 acts.