Yangtze River Cruise - Three Gorges Dam

Had the best sleep of our entire trip so far last night.  We were in bed by 9PM, skipped the captains welcome cocktail party, but did wake up to the music for the chicken dance, turns out our room is pretty much under one end of the bar.  Since this will not be a party cruise I am sure it won't be too much of an issue, most nights things are all done by 10PM it looks like.

Back to another really fun day in China.  Andre is feeling a little better today, a little more for breakfast this morning and he was able to go on the walking tour this morning. 

1st of a few locks we will pass through today on the Yangtze

Absolutely stunning scenery

Tammy and I, the fog is rolling in!

In the country you see graveyards on peoples property

This mornings walking tour was called the Tribe of the Three Gorges.  This is really a staged production where they have traditional fishing boats, woman dressed in traditional dresses, but you cannot do a stage production of the scenery.  Simply amazing.  I am sure it is about a 2km walk along these paths that they have built up along each side of the bottom of a very narrow gorge.  It really is fantastic to be out of the cities, and into some scenery that is natural.  We even came across a few wild monkeys as we went along the tour.  A nice young tour guide told us some about boyfriends and girlfriends, how they dress according to their marriage status, how the boy has to live with the girls family for 3 years before the parents will give permission to marry.  Not sure how long ago these traditions faded, but fun to hear about it. 

 

Cormorants that help the fisherman

Wild monkeys, lucky to see some

Hanging coffins, way up in the mountain, how did they get here?

Young man pulled out of the audience to get "married"

Back to the boat for lunch, then a quick turnaround for another tour that is of the Three Gorges Dam Project.  Tonight we will be passing through a 5 step lock that is part of this project.  This is the worlds largest hydroelectricity project, that serves 2.5% of China's population, have to recheck our math but that may be the entire population of Canada!  They are finalizing the last stage now, one more transportation portion for small boats that will open this June.  Unfortunately it was a misty drizzly afternoon so we really didn't get much of a view, but it was interesting to hear about especially since we had just been to Hoover Dam last year.  Going through the locks tonight is going to take about 3.5 hours, 5 steps, to raise us about 120 metres. 

 

This is what we should have seen, above is what we saw...

Tour of the dam in the rain...

On the way back to the ship you walk through a bunch of vendors, we were looking for some chopsticks for gifts, so that is now done.  We paid less than 1/6 of what they started asking for them, and I'm afraid we still might have paid too much, but it is done.  You really have to be ready to walk away, they will follow you until you are nearly on the boat with better offers!

I'm enjoying a glass of wine right now, Andre is snoring, our lives are a little backwards.  I think I'll go and find some friends in the bar...until later.

Tonight was staff talent night in the lounge, we left after about 30 minutes, 15 minutes too long, enough said.