Mar. 4 - The Goddess Stream at Shenny Stream

Alyssa - our local guide

This morning we were to stop for another tour that we took by smaller boat to the Goddess Stream.  We docked at a small community, boarded much smaller boats (maximum 30 people, but not built for that many wider, Canadian bodies), and boated up a tributary of the Yangtze River.  This stream was narrow and had very steep sides.  Our local guide, Alyssa, was a cute little Chinese girl who had a lot of confidence.  She said that her English was self-learned, and if it was, she had done a very good job.  She did have an accent, but she certainly knew the words, and was able to make some jokes in English, too.

Narrow, steep-sided canyon

She told us about the history of the area, from before the dams were built to the present.  Before the dams, the tributary was a small brook about 2 m wide, and maybe 2 m deep.  After the dams it was about 20 m wide, and up to 160 m deep.  Many small communities were flooded, and the people were given the choice to be transplanted to other locations.  However, most of the older people didn't want to leave, preferring to spend the rest of their days in the mountains of this area.

One house, one village

Now they build their houses and villages on the very steep sides of the cliffs that are all over this area.  There are no cars.  People use the river for transportation, or walk (she called it the number 11 bus - 2 legs).  They have to climb down to boats on the river, and climb back up when they return.  They have small farms, growing potatoes, carrots, corn, tea, and other herbs.  Alyssa said that there are now about 300 villages in this Goddess Stream.  She pointed out one that we passed, located way up the mountain.  It was one house, one family, one village.  There were others that were larger, but likely not more than 20 or so families.

Small boats going up the canyon

The scenery was spectacular.  Very steep mountain sides and cliffs, that were very high.  The sides of some of the cliffs were vertical, and it was hard to visualize someone walking along a path to get to another place.  She said some of the walking paths were very narrow, but that is what they know.

Railing needing repair

Old walkway partially submerged

When we were there, it was about a month after the high water from winter, and the water level was down to about 160m.  The high water mark was very evident (175m) because the sides of the canyon were a different colour, and there was no vegetation growing.  Alyssa said that in the summer, the water level would go back up (I assume because of melting snow in the high mountains of Tibet), and the dams would release more water at that time, but floods below the dams would be prevented.

Small boats moored at performance site

Crowd for the performance

We stopped at a location so that the local people could do a short performance for us.  There were a lot of these small boats filled with people, and it was very crowded on the area they had built for the performance.  Many could not see any of what was going on, so Dawn and I listened for a while and then went back to our boat.  There was a man-made wharf that was made out of plastic boxes (made for building decks).  They seemed like a good idea, but felt very unstable when walking on them.  We were afraid we might fall in the stream.  Everyone had to wear their life jackets both on the boats and on the shore.

Rising water

Once we got back to the ship, we left shortly afterward to continue upstream to our next stop.  There had been another optional tour scheduled, but they didn't get enough people who signed up for it, and it was cancelled.  So, we continued on.  About 12:00, the first city we passed after passing through the Wu Gorge, was Wushan.  It wasn't huge but there was a factory of some sort there.  After that, there were many small communities and single dwellings scattered along the sides of the river, often quite high above water level.

About 2:00pm, we went through the final gorge, Qutang Gorge.  At about 3:00pm, we passed another large city, Fengjie.  The main habitation was mainly small communities and small houses built on the sides of hills for the next many hours.

Ross and Donna receiving their prizes

Dinner was as usual, buffet style.  There was a passenger talent show scheduled for 9:00pm in the bar on deck 5.  Two of our table group, Ross and Donna, had each signed up to show their talent, so we made sure we went to support them.  At about 8:30pm, we passed another large city, Yunyang.  It was dark by this time, but the lights on the tall buildings and along the shoreline looked very nice.  The talent show went well, with Donna playing a tune on the piano, and Ross doing a sort of "stand-up" routine, telling a story about some of the history of Canada.

By the time this was finished, it was quite late for us, so off to bed we went.  Tomorrow is our last day on board, and we have our final tour of the trip scheduled for 9:00am, so we will be up for breakfast early, once again.