Here are a few pics from the cruise fashion show on Thursday night, as promised - our guide, Jacky, had a guest spot, joining in a modern number with some of the cruise ship staff and causing quite a stir!!
Friday 28th September...
This was a fascinating day having eventually reached the stunning scenery we had been promised at the start of this trip. We were woken early morning with a thunderstorm - lots of thunder and lightening - which didn't bode well for the day ahead as far as the weather was concerned!
After an 8am breakfast we headed for the bar area to learn how to play Mahjong - a little like Rummy but with domino-like tiles. Carol had also booked a Chinese foot massage for 9.30am as her feet are still swollen following the flight - a little irritating as she can't wear some of her shoes! Well, it certainly did some good and she was finished in time to witness our approach and progress through the lock gates at the Gezhouba Dam.
This was a fascinating day having eventually reached the stunning scenery we had been promised at the start of this trip. We were woken early morning with a thunderstorm - lots of thunder and lightening - which didn't bode well for the day ahead as far as the weather was concerned!
After an 8am breakfast we headed for the bar area to learn how to play Mahjong - a little like Rummy but with domino-like tiles. Carol had also booked a Chinese foot massage for 9.30am as her feet are still swollen following the flight - a little irritating as she can't wear some of her shoes! Well, it certainly did some good and she was finished in time to witness our approach and progress through the lock gates at the Gezhouba Dam.
It had moreorless stopped raining by now but a lot cooler today with lots of low cloud which has limited visibility and will mean that any photos aren't as good as we'd hoped. Everyone was up on deck for the hour or so it took us to get through the dam then we approached our first gorge - Xiling Gorge - very beautiful and atmospheric - despite the poor visibility we took lots of pics and hope that some will be worth saving.
Following an early lunch we disembarked for an afternoon visit to the Three Gorges Dam Project "the largest water conservancy project ever undertaken by human being" (according to the Chinese blurb!) The construction of the dam began in 1994 and is due to be completed in 2009 - at it's peak the project employed 28,000 locals; now only 5,000 remain to finish the work. For those of you interested in these sorts of things the Three Gorges Dam is 2,335m long, 185m high, 18m wide on top and 130 m wide at the bottom and will eventually raise the river water level to 175m above sea level creating a 600km long reservoir with a storage capacity of 39.9 billion cubic metres. By 2009, a total of 570,000 acres of farmland and villages in 19 counties and cities will have been flooded, resulting in the relocation of 1.5 million people. (We saw evidence of this mass relocation with large relocation towns being built all along the river gorges from the Dam site onward.)
The Chinese really know how to make the most of their achievements and we enjoyed a guided tour of the project, including the model version, with excellent views despite the rain and mist! Alongside the Dam is the five-step lock which we later passed through on our way up river - only 4 locks are currently operating so we had to go through the same process as at the Gezhouba Dam but 4 times over - it took us just under 2 and a half hours to reach the top and the second half of the Xiling Gorge. It was particularly fascinating going through these massive locks (a little different from the small locks we know on English canals!) alongside 2 other cruise boats - apparently they can get up to 6 small cruise boats in one lock at any one time so only 3 meant we had plenty of room!! We found ourselves going through the locks alongside a much smaller Chinese cruise boat (much like the "Chinese laundry" we mentioned earlier) - this provided great entertainment value for the Chinese as much as us - we were all taking photos of each other and the Chinese were keen to try out their limited English on us and reach out and hold our hands where possible.
One of our party, Mary, became quite a celebrity -having shaken hands with one Chinese man he then called his friends and family members to join in and take photos! We were also rather surprised to see two of the passengers with fishing rods over the side of the boat - presumably trying to catch some fish for their dinner (inside a lock!!?) - a great photo shot!
Quite an eventful day and John's favourite so far!
Quite an eventful day and John's favourite so far!
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