The Three Gorges & Their Dam
There isn’t anything else on earth quite like the Three Gorges. Stunning, serene and still incredibly beautiful even after the Chinese government built their dam and flooded the water up 500 feet. I was lucky enough to be paired with a Chinese family that hails from Yichang, the city below the Dam where most of the people involved in it had lived. Rebecca, my family mother, was actually one of the engineers for the Dam and had a lot of ins.
So the trip began at the East Railway Station in Chengdu, where we were to catch our train to Yichang. I went with a classmate Tim, who was my partner and was lucky enough to get the great family that we did with me. Public transportation in China is mostly done through Trains and Buses. People don’t drive their cars farther than 40 miles from their homes and when they decided to take trips that are 1 hour or more, they take the bus or take the train. Our particular trip would be 13 hours overnight and by a stroke of luck we got sleeper bunks. They were ‘hard’ sleepers, which constitutes a slightly padded mattress, a blanket and a pillow. Considering we were traveling during National Week which is the second biggest holiday in China next to the new year, it was incredibly fortunate we got sleepers. A 13 hour trip on a hard seat is not a fun time. Our seats back were those, and I will explain that whole situation later.
Our family has a four year old daughter named ‘Amy’ this is her English name or lovingly nicknamed ‘san-san’ which is Chinese for the number ‘3’, her parents lucky number. She is the cutest little kid you’ll ever meet, with about 2x as much energy as any four year old you’ll ever meet and the mentality of a little empress. Amy is adorably spoiled, and gets most everything she wants. She made the ride slightly rough with her complaining she didn’t have enough room, but otherwise it wasn’t too bad at all. I slept right through it. We arrived in Yichang around 8am and were taken right to our hotel. It was probably one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in and no doubt would have run a person 2-300 USD a night in the US. For us, however, because Rebecca had the ins with the company that owned the hotel, got the room for 220 kuai a night, 110 a piece or roughly 18 USD each a night. We napped for a few hours, and around 12:00 we were picked up and brought to Rebecca’s parents home, where we ate lunch with them. It was delicious as usual and Patrick (our family father) kept our time entertained with a lot of explanations of Chinese customs, question about American ones and what kinds of things we wanted to do.
I want to take a moment to explain Rebecca and Patrick. They are two of the nicest, most wonderful people I have ever met. They welcome us into their home often and enjoy our company and are both hard working and caring people. Rebecca is an engineer for the Three Gorges company that built the Dam and now builds hotels, and Patrick is a police officer who has been recently working in the passport department dealing with visas of people visiting China for the past year. They both speak English very well and are incredibly enthusiastic about us and all about our culture. Particularly Patrick, who asks us questions about everything and is always trying to teach us new Chinese or help us understand situations.
After some time spent at their house with them we were left to our own devices in our hotel room around 6pm, though those devices were to shower and rest. It was probably some of the best sleep I’d ever gotten and at 7am the next morning Patrick was knocking on our door to pick us up. The Three Gorges Dam was on the agenda for that morning, and both Tim and I were incredibly excited. Well… I think Tim was. I was for sure! It was a two hour bus ride along the Yangtze River which was beautiful and so incredible. I’ve never really experienced the Mississippi or any other major river in the US, so when I got to experience how absolutely massive and heavily-used the Yangtze River was I was blown away. It was so serene and calm as it wound its way through the Chinese countryside and even aside from the questionable brown hue of the water it was certainly an experience.
When we arrived at the Dam I was actually slightly disappointed at first. We started off way up on this high point that looks down over the Dam and it didn’t look all that impressive from such an angle. ‘… that’s it?’ I questioned with disdain as I looked out over it. This was the view we were getting? Why didn’t it seem as big as everyone said it was? It’s currently the largest dam known to Man/ever built by man and the single largest building project in history. There was some touristy made-up stuff to look at that was much like other tourist places in China which is to say, questionably staged and a bit heavy on the ‘look! Take pictures here and buy things!’ if you know what I mean. But we only stay in that spot for about 45 minutes, and we were then bussed down closer to the Dam. I was right beside it, looking out over the water and the power of the Yangtze that was contained by this incredibly structure. It was far more impressive from the side, where I could better gauge its size by my own. Here’s a little picture illustration such a thing. After this picture was taken a Chinese family nearby eagerly asked if I would take a picture with them, which I agreed to. It’s always a good day when you end up in someone’s pictures.
We were then moved again, this time to a park down below the dam and in front of it. This was where it’s true beauty and the truly awe-inspiring moment was for me. Much like standing beside Horseshoe Falls at Niagara and partaking in its wonder, I stood there and stared up at this massive looming structure so smoothly designed. It really was a site even if it did destroy several eco-systems, historical sites and displaced 1.5 million people. I can see why the built it; in a twisted sort of way it was worth it.
The trip was only a few hours and so we returned to Yichang and had a nap, then went to the gym of the Three Gorges College to meet with Rebecca’s sister and brother-in-law. Rebecca’s parents both work for the college and like all other universities in China, are provided with living space directly on campus. We started off playing badminton but when I noticed some older Chinese men playing basketball, Rebecca’s brother-in-law and I decided it would be an excellent idea to join them and play. It wasn’t, and I got my butt handed to me. I was sweating profusely and realized just how terrible I am as basketball. But thankfully we were all pretty hungry and didn’t stay too long, heading off to get some delicious and classic street vendor food consisting of dumplings, noodles and of course grilled stuff on sticks!
Not much else too exciting happened that day and we returned to our hotel. The next day we visited the first gorge Xilin while we waiting for 8 pm when we were scheduled to board our ship and I got my first taste of the the Three Gorges.
There were some informational spots about the Ba people who inhabited the Gorges and then suddenly disappeared a long time ago that I don’t really remember, followed by a fun little excursion on a speed boat around the river a little bit and some delicious fried little fish for a snack. It was beautiful, and at the end I got to take a zip-line ride across the river. There were people bungee jumping and it was only 160 kuai I believe, but I just couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I almost did… almost.
I snagged this picture off of google so just in case I will mention: it is not mine, it belongs to its respective owner and I’m glad they let it be on google for me to use it to explain the gorges to my family and friends ok so anyway, these are the three different gorges, and a basic land map of where they are in comparison to each other and Yichang:
That night at 8pm we boarded our ship.
The room was small and slightly uncomfortable and the bathroom had just a nozzle for the shower without a designated space for it and a squatty toilet. Needless to say I did not shower for two days. When we got onto the ship we went right to bed as we were tired, and I must say the view out the window was less than impressive. However when we woke up in the morning, we found ourselves parked in the middle of the river with a beautiful view of the second gorge just outside the window.
That morning we got off of our big boat onto much smaller boats and went up into the Wu Gorge which is the second gorge up the river. It was gorgeous.. I can’t honestly think of any other way I could possibly describe how breathtaking it was and I don’t know if these pictures really do it justice but it’s the best my buddy Tim could do to capture it’s beauty with his fantastic photography skills:
We returned to our boat and had lunch, then floated up the river into the third and last Gorge which honestly isn’t as impressive as the first or second.
We explored a small fortress which was cute and got to see one of the new river cities built along the river that the government built 10 years ago to move all of the 1.5 million displaced people. I loved them! They were so pretty… and they just seem to suddenly appear amidst the dark slopes along the river. A lot of the space along the banks of the river are more or less uninhabited, with one or two small villages or a house or two. The cities seems so interesting, although Tim and I were trying to figure out what they could possibly have as far as infrastructure goes in the cities.
We returned to Yichang on the evening of the last day and spent it being lazy in our room and resting. We got up in the morning for lunch in a beautiful restaurant that was basically a giant beautiful greenhouse with koi ponds and plants everywhere. Our train left at 3 pm and it was 14 hours… in a seat. All of the bunks had been purchased and so we ended up in seats for the 14 hour train ride. Though it was very long, very exhausting, and I couldn’t get any sleep, it was really entertaining. Because it was the end of National Week everyone was trying to get home and the train was packed and I mean packed. There were people sitting on the floor along the aisle and even in where the bathroom was. Trying to get to the bathroom was like a joke and I can’t even remember how many people I stepped over and on to get to it. I also practiced Chinese with Patrick and a man selling little trinkets who was shocked I could speak any Chinese and apparently thought I was really entertaining. We got home at 5am and I slept the entire rest of the day!
I don’t have any good diet tips for this one… I wasn’t in Chengdu and afterall it was vacation. No dieting on vacation, just eating and enjoying!
