Yichang to Chongqing - The Three Gorges

Over a month ago my dear mother came to stay.  Let the lateness of the post publication in no way reflect my enjoyment of her visit.  China’s just been keeping me busy.  And doing a very good job of blocking blog sites.

Mummy Tan was fortunate enough to avoid most of the strangely early rainy season that Xiamen has been recently enduring.  On her first day, I took her to a beach party.  Now, I’m under strict instructions to only publish photos where Mum looks nice.

So here’s Nada and I at the beach party.

A couple of days later we headed north to the Yangtze River, where we would embark on a cruise along the most famous stretch – the Three Gorges.  After much deliberation, we decided to go upstream, as it gave us longer on the boat and meant that we would avoid an overnight stay in Wuhan.  However, this plan also meant that instead of boarding in a nice big, major, easily accessible city (Chongqing), we would dock in Yichang, another fairly sizeable city that I for some reason imagined to be a small fishing town.  


There were no direct flights so we flew to Wuhan first and got on a shuttle bus from the airport that dropped us on a random street that was fortunately just around the corner from a long-distance bus station.  As is protocol at Chinese train and bus stations, they tried to avoid selling us tickets by pretending to not understand me but after bypasssing their regulations we got on a bus, which eventually eased its way out of the station where it proceeded to crawl along the streets at the speed of a caterpillar.  When it stopped at a service station we presumed that they just needed petrol, but instead we picked up a small family (despite the bus being full) and continued along the road.

Then the bus broke down of course.

Luckily, another bus came and picked us up and about 4 hours later we arrived in Yichang.  We were dropped at what we thought was the port, since it was on the river and there were boats, and someone said it was the port.  So we wandered around a bit, had dinner, bought some fruit, then tried to find our way to our boat.  After asking many people I worked out that our ‘port’ was, in fact, nowhere near where we were but about 30km away.  A taxi driver told me you could take a bus for 2 hours and then walk a few km to get there, or he would take us.  After much bargaining we drove off.  It wasn’t until we were driving through some kind of mountain village slum that I started to worry about whether the driver really knew where we were going/was going to murder us for our passports.  We drove through back alleys and half formed roads, then down the side of a cliff where the road just ended.  There were 2 boats there; thankfully one was ours.

Everything was much less scary and much more fancy on the boat.  We got a cheap upgrade to VIP and everything.  There was a bath in the bathroom.  One usually only dreams of such luxury in China.

And so began 3 days of decadence – sitting on our balcony…

Sitting at dinner…

Sitting in our VIP coffee bar…

Etc.

We went on 3 excursions.  

Firstly, to see the Three Gorges Dam, a rather controversial feat of engineering that boasts the world’s largest power station and should reduce the risk of flooding, but involved the relocation of over a million residents and originally flooded many cultural sites.  Discuss.

Here’s our boat entering the first lock.  

There are 5 locks in the Three Gorges Dam so at first it was quite exciting.  Several hours later, not so much.

Secondly, we went on a small excursion down Shennong Stream to see the Lesser Three Gorges, which were probably more beautiful than the main ones as they were more narrow and less polluted.

We took small boats powered by locals who rowed 2 hours just to meet us and 2 hours home after our trip.  The oldest was 86 and he was still rowing with pride.  It was very impressive and just a little disconcerting.


Here's Mum on the boat from this boat back to the other boat.

The third trip was to Fendu Ghost city, where there were no ghosts, but a lot of steps.

Here’s Mum taking as many steps as possible over a bridge so that she’ll be very rich and healthy.

Here I am standing one-footed on a stone to see how pure my soul is.

Back on the boat I volunteered for an acupuncture demonstration, which hurt, but not as much as the ‘cupping’ demonstration that I did not volunteer for and left a beautiful red circle on my neck for 3 days, because I had too much yang and not enough yin.  Or was it too much yin…?

Each time we passed through one of the Three Gorges, Kylie, the boat manager/event coordinator/customer helpline/host/dancer would introduce the scenery.  Often it was quite windy up on top deck so no one wanted to be there.  But Kylie had to be.  Here I have captured the classic moment in which poor Kylie, sheltering from the vicious wind, is upstaged by Brian in his shorts.

All in all, the cruise was a very beautiful and relaxing experience.

Chongqing, when we docked, almost wasn’t.  It was a big city and you couldn’t really see anything for the smog.  Luckily, at the metro station, we met a guy whose name I forget, who directed us to the Chongqing Exposition, a massive area of lake, hills and gardens designed in the style of every culture (99% Chinese, but of course).  We spent the entire day here…

…before flying back to Xiamen, where I made sure Mum had the classic Xiamen experience:

The University

Good old Gulangyu

Coconuts on the beach boardwalks

And, of course, the karaoke that’s a treat for both the eyes and the ears: KTV.

I think Mum enjoyed China, despite the lack of English tea and corruption of the fine English tradition of queuing.  I, for one, very much enjoyed having her here.  Because whose life abroad isn’t improved by a visit from their Mum?  You can’t take a suitcase full of chocolate, magazines and moisturiser for granted out here.