Cruisin' Down the Yangtze River

Friday, March 13



We set out from Pudong Airport headed for Chongqing. The travel agency that set up the Yangtze River cruise for us arranged for one of their drivers to pick up the guys and I at the airport. We grabbed dinner (a spicy dumpling soup bowl popular in the Sichuan province), before heading onto the boat. We got settled in, and immediately caused quite a stir. It was a Chinese cruise ship, not a luxury liner that foreigners typically embark on. Everyone was excited to see some Americans! By the end of the night, I even ended up singing Chinese karaoke songs.



Saturday, March 14



Chinese people like to wake up really early!! Breakfast is at 5:30 am everyday. Needless to say we did not have breakfast the entire boat ride. At 7am we embarked on our first stop at Fengdu, the Ghost City. Many Chinese people actually believe this to be a haunted city, however, I didn't see a single ghost! There are some pretty creepy statues though. It was culturally interesting, for me, because it was the first time I'd ever seen Chinese culture suggest a hell... in fact the statues from approximately the same era as Dante Alighieri, depict a hell of torment that might have even made Dante's skin crawl.




The weather was so nice that we spent our days on the viewing deck, relaxing and taking in the scenery.



We sailed all day until our second excursion, which was a midnight stop at the Zhejiang Temple. A common phrase in China is, "you've seen one temple, you've seen 'em all." Generally, I try to reject this notion, but the more temples I see the more I come to understand it. This was no exception with the Zhejiang Temple. Especially when there are no tour guides to explain to you what everything is. Luckily we made friends with the only other foreigners on board, an American family living in Beijing.




Sunday, March 15

Early the next morning, an announcement came that we would be passing throught the first of the famed Three Gorges. The first gorge, Qutang Gorge was by far my favorite. It was a little foggy in the morning, but I feel like the fog only made it that much more spectacular.




Morning broke over the mountains and we were off on our final day of crusing. Our excursion for the day was into the "Lesser Three Gorges," which most people find to be more spectacular, because they are extremely isolated and much narrower. While I myself prefer the actual Three Gorges, the Lesser ones were not without beauty.



We passed by the second gorge, Wu Gorge, in the afternoon. If you'll notice in the picture, there's a giant plant in the middle of the floor. Chinese boats usually have a ton of plants on board. Apparently it's good luck to have many plants on your ship.



That night we checked into a hotel near the Three Gorges Dam and prepared to tour the next day. Alex, Evan, and I took advantage of the hotel's amenities and managed to get in a few games of bowling.



The next day we toured the Three Gorges Dam. It's massive to say the least. It was definitely created with tourism in mind though, there are several lookout platforms and unnecessary symbolism and decoration of the area.




From the dam, it was about a 3-drive to the small city (of 4 million) called Yichang, in Hubei Province. We'd gone almost half of the way back to Shanghai, but we had to wait until 10pm for the daily flight to Chengdu to meet up with our group. Our AWESOME cab driver, "Jack" took us to an amusement park in Yichang to kill the day. We did all sorts of fun things like rock climbing, zip lines, etc. It was located in this beautiful gorge.



In the afternoon, we headed to the Yichang Zoo and fired airsoft guns into the lake/trees.



We sampled some local foods before Jack dropped us off at the airport.