Gorges

As the only English speakers at our meal table, we've felt a bit isolated with no interaction from our table mates for the first several meals. Like no eye contact or other acknowledgement. Our theory is that we have a couple about our age traveling with the husband's parents, a 30 something couple, and the only guy we are sure about is a man from Beijing who is the interpreter for the French group that is onboard. He at least has treated us from the start with a Bon Jour and Goodbye, but his English is pretty much as weak as our Chinese.

Last night I got a nod out of the man my age and this morning we got a smile from his mother-in-law. By the time we were ready to embark on today's excursion they were downright friendly and laughing with Melanie. When they offered to take this picture of us with the smiling Budda we jumped at the chance for international dialogue. At tonight's final dinner tonight we all toasted each other and I felt much better.

While waiting for our trip to the gorge Melanie checked out the Dr.'s office

She was a bit bothered that his name was Mr. Lee. She was looking for some sort of initials before or after his name, such as MD.

Today we explored two of the three major gorges and the three minor gorges on the river. What you need to know is that in the '80's the Chinese decided to damn the Yangzi river to control flooding and harness hydroelectric power. These steep deep gorges leant themselves to the project. This meant flooding hundreds of villages as the depth in some places went from less than a meter to between 80-150 meters. So we kept having to imagine that 40 years ago we would have been 80 yards lower down. (Hmm did i cover this already?

However, although they flooded the area, the area regularly flooded on its own. So they relocated the people and then flooded the area. I guess there was somewhat of a worldwide uproar over moving people and messing with the ecology. My opinion is, I believe in Maslow's hierarchy. It's nice to worry about relocating ( and let me point tour history) but this has upgraded people's lives a tremendous amount. The greater good is not always my philosophy but it is here. The old houses were hovels with no electricity. Now there are apts with electricity and the people have been moved back. Plus this damn supplies electricity for 5 percent of China's population. They hoped it would supply more but as the standard of living rose, so did the electricity consumption.

We saw hanging coffins. The prehistoric Chinese ( that's defined in China as any civilization over 6000 years old. This one was called the Ba people.) lived on the cliffs. They buried their dead in caves up on the sheer cliffs. how? No one is sure. Maybe by hanging ropes down. I've decided as a last group puzzle I'm asking the 3 boys to figure out how to bury me in a cave off a sheer cliff. You'll have to work together and not fight. No Aaron you can't just throw me off the cliff.

I've been trying to describe the 3 gorges. It would be kind of like floating through the Rockies or the Grand Canyon (which has a river) but the cliffs are more narrow on the Yangtze. Except there is vegetation all over except for intermittent sheer rock. Is that clear as mud? The river itself is muddy some from the recent rains. The tributaries we went through though cleared up to an emerald color (thus one of the gorges was called emerald gorge.)

The story is that once upon a time 7 dragons guarded the river. Some god got pissed at the people and turned them to stone and stopped the flow of water leading to calamitous conditions for the people. A kindly goddes was engaged to carve a path through the dragons to let the water through. With the help of a giant yellow ox she did so and was immortalized as one of the peaks we passed.

There are three gorges on the Yangtze and the minor gorges on the Dam river. To do this stretch we transferred first to a small passenger boat and some kilometers later to an even smaller wood boat. You can see one of the boatmen wearing traditional rain garb over his life vest.

 

The Chinese don't even pretend to have truth in advertising. So this guy below, after singing as a beautiful song, passed out souvenir key rings "freely." After he handed them out he said if we want to keep them we must pay. A little annoying but minor once you understand that's the way it is.

After dinner tonight we retired to our room, figured out how to get stuff into only two bags and called it a night.

Moon over Yangstee River

The amount of building going on in China is remarkable. Our guide in Xian said it was fine for her and her parents but her grandparents hardly leave the apt because so much has changed. When I first visited Israel about 40 years ago and then visited again I would feel the rapid change with every visit. But he last time i visited I felt the rapid change had ended. Yes it is changing but not the way it had when developing. Groups of 15 to 20 30 story apt houses going up side by side in a group. Since and including Xian every place we go, it's clearly a new city. Say within the last 5 years. Along the river the villages are built since the last flood that triggered the damn project.

Now We're flying to Shanghai out of Yichang, a small city ( their words) of 4.1 million. The district is 47 percent forest which explains the " low" population number. Wildlife in the forest includes, monkeys, bears, tigers and big foot. I think big foot in China is any animal with a larger then size 6 foot.

 

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