Mar. 5 - Shibaozhai Pagoda

We arrived in Shibaozhai sometime during the night, and were docked when we woke up.  It was quite smoky again, so it was difficult to see much, although we could at least see across the river.  Breakfast was as usual, starting at 7:00am today.  Our tour was a walking tour,

Mary - our local guide

with the first market store right beside where we got off the ship.  Then we walked up an incline (like a long boat ramp) where more vendors had set up their stalls.

Our ship as we walked to the town

From there, we walked up the street to the end of the block (again vendors all along the road), turned down the way (again with vendors along the way) and walked for about 2 blocks before turning back toward the river (which of course, took us along another row of vendors).  The main source of income in this small city is from tourism, and the locals would like you to purchase lots of things from them, but at high prices.  We learned to barter on this trip, and after a while didn't feel uncomfortable doing it.  If one vendor didn't want to meet our final price, we could walk to the next one and maybe get the same thing at our price.  If we got too far away, they would come after us, willing to bargain some more.  For the most part, Dawn got good at it.

Pagoda

When we got to the pagoda, we had to walk across a small suspension bridge.  Dawn wasn't happy about going across, and when we got to the first pillar, the walkway got quite shaky, and she was afraid, so we didn't go across.  It was going to be a lot of climbing stairs that were at about a 70 degree angle (said Mary, our local guide), so we didn't feel we were going to be climbing up the stairs anyway, so not a lot was missed.

Lined up at the clinic

In the city, we walked by a kindergarten.  We didn't see the kids, but we could hear them.  I think their classroom was on the second floor of the building, but their play area was on the ground floor where we could see some slides and things for play.  Farther along, we walked by another area where there were lots of kids (they appeared to be about 6-8 years old) playing and waiting with

Kids playing

their parents and grandparents.  We thought this might be a primary school, but when we got to the building, we could see that it was a health unit.  These kids were there to get their immunizations.  Kids are kids, and they found something to play with (a basketball, marbles, go-go-stop, all sorts of things) and were having a good time.  I don't know if these ones knew what was coming, or if they are just tough here.

Go-Go-Stop

On the way back to the ship, we shopped more thoroughly at the stands along the way.  This is where Dawn started getting quite good at the bargaining.  At one booth, there was an artist doing charcoal drawings.  He was doing a scene of the pagoda, and was almost finished.  We took some photos and watched him for a while.  His wife began to work at getting us to purchase one, and when we got her down to 60 Yuan (about $12) we agreed, but we wanted the one he was working on.  We watched him finish the sketch,

Artist

and then he signed it, put down the date, and the name of the city (Shibaozhai), and applied his seal.  We noticed that he did all his work with his right hand, so figured that he had lost a hand, or it didn't work.  We were quite happy with the work, and I shook his hand when we left.

Sister Ship docking beside us

Once back at the ship (after buying a number of t-shirts and wine bottle covers), we went to our cabin.  Another ship (we assumed the sister ship of ours) was approaching.  They pulled up right alongside of us, tied up to us, and sat there.  I guess their passengers were going to get off here, once we left.  We were supposed to be back aboard by 11:00, but we still hadn't left by 11:40.  One of the ships is blowing their horn, so either ours is calling our passengers to return, or we are getting ready to pull out.  I think it will be interesting to see how they move things around.

Antonis - Asst Hotel Manager

After lunch, they provided a short tour of the bridge  Our bus group and another, was scheduled for 2:15 pm, so we arrived at deck 5 at about 2:05. There, the Assistant Hotel Manger, Antonas (a very nice Bulgarian man) was going to take our group.  Gary, the Hotel Manager got the group before us and the one after us.  Antonas was very friendly, had a good, but dry, sense of humour, and we joked a lot.  Dawn asked to drive the ship when we got up to the bridge.  He told her next trip she could.  Notice, he didn't say no, but deflected to another time.  Easily could have been a teacher.

It was interesting in the bridge.  There was only one officer (the 2nd Mate) there.  We all (about 20 of us) squeezed into what is a fairly small area, and Antonas explained what each of the monitors and various buttons and dials meant.  There are 2 GPS systems on the port side of the wheel, and one on the starboard side.  These show the ship's position in the river, and the position of other boats and ships that are traveling towards us and in the same direction as us.  We were going about 11.7 knots upstream.  Another monitor showed the engines (there are 4 of them, but not all get used, all the time) and information about each one.  A final monitor showed the radar picture and the position of the rudder.  There were circles around our ship, each 400m farther away from the ship so they could see how close other ships were and how close to shore they were.

Bridge of the ship

The next station was where the 2nd Mate was manning the wheel.  There were two small wheels that he used to steer the ship.  I believe that Antonis said that one controlled the front rudder, and the other the rear rudder (I believe that the rudder is the direction the propeller is facing).

On the starboard side of the wheel, there was another GPS system, and the depth sonar.  At the time we were there, there was 34 m of water under our keel.  The ship's keel was 2.9 m below the water line, so the depth at that location was about 37 m.  We were fairly close to shore which is why it seemed so shallow.  Farther out from shore, the depth is up to 160 m.

View from the Bridge

Finally there was one more gauge to see.  This one showed the angle that the ship's deck was at, side to side.  At the time we were there, it was zero degrees.  Antonis said that is it got to 20-30 degrees, there might be an announcement to pack up our bags and move to the other side of the ship, or, to just get our life jackets and go to deck 6 for the life boats.  I did say he had a sense of humour.

Greeter to restaurant

This was a very interesting tour.  The officers work 3 shifts, 4 hours on, and then 8 hours off.  The captain wasn't there at that time, but he had to be on the bridge for the important times - docking, leaving, going through the locks, etc.  When the tour was over, we went back to our room and started to organize our suitcases for tomorrow's departure.  There is another sit-down dinner tonight, and after that, we have to get our bags ready to put outside our room in the hallway.  We are the first group flying out of Chongqing tomorrow morning at 9:00, so we imagine we will be up early to depart for the airport.

Chicken feet

The sit-down dinner was another experience.  Some of the dishes were quite good, others, maybe not so much.  Dawn drew the line at chicken feet.  Others said they were alright, but not as good as what they were used to.  We still didn't try them.

It is an interesting way to eat. They only bring a bit at a time, and you eat that dish.  They leave most of what is left on the lazy-susan when they bring another dish, and before long, it is filled with dishes.  This forces one to eat slowly, and it is amazing how full you get, when it doesn't feel like you have eaten very much.

Some of the dishes

This was the big "farewell dinner" so again, the wait staff were dressed up in finer costumes.  We had most of our usual servers, but it seems with this type of meal, that whomever gets the next dish, places it at our table.  We were going to miss these young folks, as well as our table/bus group, so a lot of the time was spent talking among our group and with others we had met on the tour.  When it was time for our farewells (most of us were leaving on the same bus and plane, but Donna and Ross didn't fly out until the afternoon), it was quite sad.  We had met, and become friends with our group, and it was going to be sad to see them go.  Hopefully we will keep in touch.  Neil took a list of everyone's email addresses that he is going to send to each of us.

Our Wait Staff for the Cruise

Sunny

Tang

Carol

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.

Mar. 3 - The Three Gorges

We were up early this morning to shower and get ready for what we hoped would be a scenic day.  It was quite foggy again this morning.  Breakfast was scheduled for 8:00 - 9:30, and we were scheduled to enter the first gorge (Xiling gorge) with the first dam and lock at 8:30.  We didn't eat a lot for breakfast, and by the time we finished, we were approaching the lock.

Lock gate behind our ship

Exiting the lock

Back to our cabin to watch the process.  It is very similar to the Panama Canal locks, except we were in a lock with 2 other cargo ships which were there ahead of us.  Once the gate was closed behind us, and the water started coming in, the whole process took about half an hour until we were out of the lock and back into the lake/river that the dam had formed.

We were supposed to have a commentary from the cruise manager as we sailed through the Xiling gorge, but due to the fog, they delayed this commentary for half an hour, hoping the fog would rise (hasn't lifted since we got to China, so we don't anticipate it will lift in the next half hour).  Our optional tour to Tribe of the Three Gorges has also been moved back half an hour.

We have been watching the news for the last couple days.  It is getting a little scary with the problems in the Ukraine and Crimea.  This morning we watched information about the terrorist attack in the train station a little farther west than we are right now.  Thank goodness we aren't traveling by train.  The Chinese Yuan is dropping in value, so perhaps the money we have now will be worth more Canadian than what we paid for it ;-)  .  I know mom will be worried about us, and without internet, I can't let her know we are fine.

Our dock for the tour

Ready to go on the tour after lunch

We went on two tours today.  The first one was an optional tour and cost us 360 Yuan (about $75 CAD) each.  We docked at a small place in the gorge, with houses built up along the bank of the river.  There was a walkway along the river, about 25 meters above water level.  The walkway had many pagoda structures, and they were building more along the way.  Some of the buildings had scaffolding that was made of bamboo.  This walkway had many steps.  We didn't go there.

Entrance to Empress Stream

Bamboo scaffolding on construction

Instead, we got off our ship, and boarded a ferry that was parked right behind our ship.  It was about a 10 minute ride up the river from where we docked and we arrived at a tourist attraction called Tribe of the Three Gorges at Empress Stream.  Now this was a spectacular tour; the scenery was what we felt was/should have been common in China.  It reminded us of what we have seen in some movies about China.  It was a walking tour of a couple kilometres, up a creek that was in a deep, quiet canyon.

Singing in the river

Washing clothes

We walked up a boardwalk along one side of the creek, meeting locals who were singing and playing the flute.  This was to represent how the young couples got together.  They had to sing to each other to attract a mate.  It seemed like a lot of money had been spent here to make the area attractive to tourists.  The buildings were rustic, pagoda style, very neat and tidy.

Singing

We met some monkeys who waited around to be fed peanuts.  They came down to the walkway as soon as we stopped and started taking photos of them.  The biggest ones got most of the peanuts, but even the smaller ones got some in the end.

Getting ready for the performance

Farther on, we got to a set of waterfalls.  It was very peaceful and quiet.  There was another distance that we could have gone, and some did, to another set of falls.  However, this one was climbing a bunch of stairs (our local guide, Judy, said about 100 steps, but I think it was much more than that.  Dawn and I stayed, but a couple others climbed up.

Judy, our local guide

Once we started back, we went down the other side of the stream to a small outdoor theatre where they put on a "Wedding Ceremony" for us.  It showed the local customs for how a woman chose her husband, and then they got married.  It was quite a show, and had us laughing and cheering (there must have been 200 from the cruise).


After that, it was back to the ship so we could continue sailing up the river to the Three Gorges Dam.  This part of the trip took about about an hour, so we had time to get some lunch.  Then, we docked again, at another small town.  When leaving the ship this time, we had to walk through a small market to get to the buses.  These folks were quite aggressive, and wanted us to purchase all sorts of things.  Our tour guide, Lisa, had told us that the things being sold in these small towns were locally produced, and not generally of very good quality, but people were making purchases.  Some said "when we get back", and Lisa then told us again that these people were poor with not very good education, not very much money, not very good quality of goods, but very good memories.  She laughed and said that those who told them "when they get back" would be remembered and likely followed until they purchased something.

Security guards

The trip to the dam site took about 15 minutes by bus.  It is a high security area, and we had to go through screening.  There were military guards at all the gates, and we had to go through an airport-like x-ray machine, and have our pockets wanded and checked for things that might be dangerous.  Once through the screening, we continued to the dam.

Entrance to escalators

We crossed a large suspension bridge, and then the bus climbed a long way up to a viewing area where we could see much of the dam site.  We were quite high up, but there was a shop up there, too.  It was interesting to listen to Wendy (our local guide - the bus driver was Peter Pan), tell her story about the dam.  There was a large model of the dam site there, and after the Chinese language explanation took place, Wendy took over and gave an explanation in English.

Top of the mountain

Granite boulder

Then we had some free time to look around.  We went to the meeting place a bit early, so I walked across the parking lot to see the a close up of the locks.  On the way back, and Chinese man approached me, and I was finally able to understand that he wanted to take my picture with his wife and likely his mother.  So I agreed to do this, much to the amusement of Dawn and some of the people who were waiting for our tour to continue.  I became a hero and a celebrity for a moment ;-).

Then it was a walk down a hill to the 185 level, which is 185m above the water level behind the dam.  This allowed us to get a closer look at the locks,  Then down some more and about a 10 minute walk to our last stop, which was at the level of the top of the dam.  Again, there were some shops there, and lots of things were purchased, before we boarded the bus to head back to the ship.

Military vehicle

Construction for "ship lift"

The vendors at the market were waiting for us, and Dawn had learned that some of the shops had some things she was looking for, so we had to spend a bit more money.  Another Lisa, a girl from Abbotsford who is in our group, did the bargaining, and she got the vendor down to half price, so Dawn took it.

Finally we were able to escape the gauntlet of vendors, and re-board the ship.  They always welcome us, with one of the crew waiting at each place where there may be a concern for walking.  The common things are: "welcome back", and  "watch your step", along with a big smile.

We were back on the ship, tired but happy.  We had a great day, and really enjoyed our tours today. wanded and checked for things that might be dangerous.  Once through the screening, we continued to the dam.

Mar 2 - Cruising to Jingzhou

Building on the River bank

River Police Station

We've been sailing all night and have continued for most of the day.  This part is being written at about 1:20pm, after eating lunch.  The river water is much clearer here which may be because we are getting closer to the Three Gorges Dam (although we don't get there until tomorrow evening), or it may be because there is lots of work going on building levees on each shore, which would help prevent erosion.

Ferry across the river

Unloading the ferry

The river is narrower now, but not so narrow that it is crowded.  There are far fewer boats than there have been since we began the trip.  We can clearly see the work going on.  They are unloading the boats of sand, gravel, large boulders, etc.  It is interesting to see the various ways that they do this.  In some cases, there are long conveyor belts that come out of the front of these boats that transport the gravel up to the top of the levee, and it gets dumped in big piles.  In other cases, they use big diggers to pick up the huge boulders and drop them over the side, or load them on to big trucks that have come down from the top of the levee.

Unloading the aggregate

Stabilizing the river banks

Workers on shore are moving these materials around.  Right at the water level and above for about 5-10 feet, is where they have laid down rip-rap - the large boulders.  Above that along the sides of the levee, it appears that they break the area into strips about 20 feet wide, separated by what appears to be cement borders (but are likely something else).  In the gaps, it seems that they lay some sort of cloth foundation, and then they cover this with gravel of various sizes. to fill that strip.  I don't know, but I imagine after that size aggregate is laid down (by hand to spread it from what we saw), then they add smaller gravel to fill in around this larger gravel.  From the finished parts we have seen, they appear to be very smooth, so I believe our assumptions are correct.

Three Gorges Dam Project Lecture

We attended a 45 minute lecture on the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dams this morning.    Gary, our cruise director, gave us an interesting Powerpoint slide show and talk.  He gave us lots of interesting pieces of information about this river - the third largest river in the world behind the Nile and the Amazon.  We are now in the area of the middle reaches of the river, which has historically been hit by terrible floods.  At present, 145 million people would be affected if the river flooded on a regular basis, so this is the reason for the work that is going on.  The Three Gorges Dam was built mainly for flood control, but also for hydro power generation and navigation assistance.  The levees add to the protection of the flat farm lands along the shore, preventing the river from spilling on to the land, displacing all those people and ruining all those crops.  They are sure doing a lot of work in this country.  It is pretty interesting.

Welcoming band

When we got to Jingzhou, it was fairly late.  We got off the boat at about 5:00pm, traveled through part of the city, through the city wall, and over to the museum.  The population of this city is about 1.2 million, with about 800 000 permanent residents.  Inside the city wall, there are about 120 000 who live in various apartments there.  Jeff, our local guide was very hard to understand, and there was some serious echo from the speakers on the bus, which didn't help at all.  He indicated that the government is working to move the population outside the city walls through various means.  First they are moving the government offices, then the hospitals, and then the schools.  They feel this will encourage a lot of the population to them move as well.

Beautiful museum building

Jingzhou Museum

This museum wasn't as interesting, and because it was almost dark, it was hard to see things.  We only got to go into a small part of the museum, and with our many buses from the ship, it was crowded and very noisy.  Each bus guide was talking to their group, and they all were making so much noise and "fighting" for space that we found it quite uncomfortable.  We decided to move ahead of our group and look on our own.  We were able to get some pictures with my camera, and hopefully will be able to adjust them a bit when putting them on the computer.

Looking at the exhibits

It was dark by the time we left the museum, and took us to Phoenix park that overlooked the city wall.  The wall had lights on it, and was quite spectacular looking.  Hopefully the photos will do it some justice.  It was cold and damp, so we only stayed 20 minutes and then headed back to our ship.

Statue at the wall

View of the city wall

Again, the driver was very aggressive.  I would hate to be driving a car near them.  I think the rule must be if you are bigger, you can get in the spot.  There are lots of horns being honked, but I don't know if anyone pays any attention.  I would not be comfortable driving in this country.

Lights at the Wall

Once back at the ship, dinner was scheduled right away, so we washed up and then went to dish up at the buffet before everyone else got back and the line got long.  Once everyone was on board, the ship pulled out, and we continued our journey up the river.  Tomorrow, we go through the Three Gorges area where there are some dams, some locks to travel through, and a couple of tours.  One of the tours is optional, and we bought that one.  Hopefully the weather is more clear.  Right now, there is a lot of fog.  We haven't seen the sunshine since we got here, although it hasn't rained for a couple days.  Some of the fog must be smog, but it manly appears to be fog now.