Cruising the Three Gorges
No, these are actually not the same shot twice. Believe it or not, I’ve pared down the many photos I shot to about 10% to post on here, but I want to post enough to give you sense of the almost otherworldly beauty of these gorges, especially shrouded in fog and mist as they were when we saw them. As our tour book said, you get an idea where many of the inspirations for Chinese paintings come from. 🙂
Views of the Three Gorges
I’ve been trying just to post a few more shots for the past hour, and each time they get rejected…so I’m trying a single shot. Maybe I can get it working again…if not…more shots of the gorges whenever I can get it to work for me. 🙂 It’s gettin’ late here in BJ!
Life in the Gorges
Cruising through the Gorges, I very much had a feeling of the age of the landscape and of human habitation there. Also of the relative poverty of the region. So often, we passed imposing cliffs with one or two small shacks somehow wedged into the slopes, with terraces of fields somehow carved out as well. In one of these shots, you’ll see a house up on the hill and a boat at the bottom…obviously the way this family gets its produce to market, I’m guessing. We saw little water taxis picking folks up from the bottoms of their slopes, and carrying them across the river for work or for shopping. And all of this in a region of virtually endlessly steep cliffs with few roads and little means of travel other than the river, really. Quite amazing, in some ways.
Cliffs, Towns, Boats in the Gorges
The shot with the town and boat is actually where we disembarked to tour the Dam. The green cliffs are from the second gorge.
Paul & Steve on the Cruise
And of course there have to be some pics of us in the Gorges. 🙂 The one of me all wrapped up in my jacket was a self-pic since I was at the back of the boat trying to hide from the rain and cold behind the engine (warmer, but more smoke — it’s all tradeoffs, no?) and Steve was being brave up front. Man, it was wet and cold…and beautiful.
Third Gorge, Post-Dam
These are a few shots taken after we cleared the Three Gorges Dam. Shots of the dam are a bit later on.
Peapod Boats on Shennong Stream
We did two side trips on our cruise. The first was to a tacky “ghost town” (a few shots later) on the first day. The second afternoon, we spent several hours on first a smaller motorized boat cruising up an ever-narrowing side stream, then on “peapod boats” (so named because of their shape) being first rowed, then pulled, up an ever-shallower stream surrounded by beautiful moody hills.
Steve and I shared a boat with a really GREAT group of Australian tourists and our boat was by far the most interesting one — we sang “Drunken Sailor” and “Waltzing Matilda” to entertain our captain, tour guide, and paddlers as we were rowed upstream, and generally had quite a good time. Steve had time, afterwards, to speak with the oldest member of the group and to learn that for him, this day was literally the realization of a lifelong dream. He is a WWII veteran, and after the loss of his wife a few years ago he decided he’d finally travel the world and see things he’s always dreamed of seeing. This was his first trip, and being pulled upstream by the trackers (you can see them in one of these shots) is something he’s dreamed about since he read a book about boat traffic, and foot trackers, on the Yangtze and its tributaries as a child in Australia, during the teens or twenties.
Indeed, Steve and I found the Shennong Stream trip — aside from our pleasure in the company; those back home should ask Steve about his talent show performance of Waltzing Matilda with the group that evening — both beautiful and very interesting. The peapod boats were until recently used exclusively for work and transport of goods; these days they’re just about exclusively used for tourists coming off the big cruise ships. It seems clear that Three Gorges tourism is an important part of the economic picture of many of these towns.
Water Level Sign
This shot is on its own since you can see how high the water level will ultimately be: the white sign on the hill shows the ultimate water level. The river has already risen most of the way it will rise — a woman from Australia who leads tour groups told us she noticed a real difference from her last trip, last year. But it’s all still quite impressive and beautiful, as I hope you agree. Shennong is in between the second gorge and the beginning of the third gorge…I think…Steve will comment if I’m wrong, since I’m pretty sure he’s got the map at home with him :-). In any case, we were getting pretty close to where the dam is now in operation, but going up Shennong Stream we were also going back uphill basically.
(so much world, so little time....) 
