Today was our first full day of cruising the Yangtze River. The Yangtze is the major river that runs through the south of China (and is apparently the third longest river in the world). The river is very famous for its controversial Three Gorges Dam project that was started around 2000 and is nearly completed. The new dam will help "control" the river for more effective shipping, but in the process it will flood the river valley. This means a lot of relocation for many Chinese citizens who live along the river. You can tell the river has already started flooding the valley because there are no natural coastlines...just water that runs into the grassy banks as well as the suspension of the cable cars from the boat to each disembarkation point. As you can see below, there are a lot of steps to walk up in lieu of the cable cars. My assumption is that once the waterline stabilizes, they will redo the cable cars to better transport passengers to the excursions.
When we first started to sail along the coastline, I kept looking for houses that are partly submerged by the river (I know, kind of morbid) but I did not see any. It was not until our Yangtze info session that we learned they cleared away all trees and villages below the future water line in order to get rid of future navigational obstacles. They do have markers all along the river that show where the current level is and where it will end up. It has become a game to look and see which houses will make the cut and which houses will be under water...also kind of creepy!
Since we started sailing late last night, our first excursion was this morning. We went to this town called Fengdu (Ghost City) that was one big supersitious hill. There were lots of rules about how to walk up the stairs and over bridges and lots of scary statues of demons. Examples: If you want longevity, you can run up a flight of 33 stairs, holding your breath the whole way. If you want either health or wealth, you have to walk over whichever bridge you chose in a particular fashion...if you are single, you start with your right foot and walk 5 or 7 steps. and if you are married, you walk over with your significant other in 9 steps, etc. If you want kids, there was a temple to pray in (no worries, we stayed far away). If you want to avoid hell, you can only walk up the right hand side of one staircase.
[Court chose to walk over the bridge for health. I chose wealth because everyone else went for health and if anything happens to my health first, then I will pass on my wealth to her.]
At the top of the hill was a temple with the god of hell in it (and some reallllly freaky statues...they sure laid it on thick) where you could buy a passport out of hell for 10 yuan (about $1.50). I passed on that...I'm Catholic, can't do much about that. There was also a neat pagoda at the top of the hill and a view of this million dollar hotel that is the face of Buddha on the front, but was never finished because a worker committed suicide in the building (and that's bad feng shui).
I'd say that the most exciting part of the trip was on the cable car ride down the hill when a large piece of metal fell off and hit me in the arm. Court thought I was a goner and I thought my camera was the goner, but luckily we survived. It was doubtful there for a moment and I was definitely regretting not purchasing my passport out of hell...
The rest of the day was spent eating and attending entertaining information sessions with our river guide, Jeff. We also went to a bizarre fashion show to cap off the evening. The best part of the fashion show was at the end when the host, Iris, invited us to take a photo of all the models in their attire and she goes, "Take your time and hurry up." I <3 Chinglish!
When we first started to sail along the coastline, I kept looking for houses that are partly submerged by the river (I know, kind of morbid) but I did not see any. It was not until our Yangtze info session that we learned they cleared away all trees and villages below the future water line in order to get rid of future navigational obstacles. They do have markers all along the river that show where the current level is and where it will end up. It has become a game to look and see which houses will make the cut and which houses will be under water...also kind of creepy!
Since we started sailing late last night, our first excursion was this morning. We went to this town called Fengdu (Ghost City) that was one big supersitious hill. There were lots of rules about how to walk up the stairs and over bridges and lots of scary statues of demons. Examples: If you want longevity, you can run up a flight of 33 stairs, holding your breath the whole way. If you want either health or wealth, you have to walk over whichever bridge you chose in a particular fashion...if you are single, you start with your right foot and walk 5 or 7 steps. and if you are married, you walk over with your significant other in 9 steps, etc. If you want kids, there was a temple to pray in (no worries, we stayed far away). If you want to avoid hell, you can only walk up the right hand side of one staircase.
[Court chose to walk over the bridge for health. I chose wealth because everyone else went for health and if anything happens to my health first, then I will pass on my wealth to her.]
At the top of the hill was a temple with the god of hell in it (and some reallllly freaky statues...they sure laid it on thick) where you could buy a passport out of hell for 10 yuan (about $1.50). I passed on that...I'm Catholic, can't do much about that. There was also a neat pagoda at the top of the hill and a view of this million dollar hotel that is the face of Buddha on the front, but was never finished because a worker committed suicide in the building (and that's bad feng shui).
I'd say that the most exciting part of the trip was on the cable car ride down the hill when a large piece of metal fell off and hit me in the arm. Court thought I was a goner and I thought my camera was the goner, but luckily we survived. It was doubtful there for a moment and I was definitely regretting not purchasing my passport out of hell...
The rest of the day was spent eating and attending entertaining information sessions with our river guide, Jeff. We also went to a bizarre fashion show to cap off the evening. The best part of the fashion show was at the end when the host, Iris, invited us to take a photo of all the models in their attire and she goes, "Take your time and hurry up." I <3 Chinglish!
1 comment:
LINDSEY!! I love your blog .. it is the best thing I do on night shift on the nights I'm off. There really isn't much to do at 2 in the morning over here in America so I read your blog and pretend I'm in China. Reading your cruise story I just felt reminded of our greece trip when we walked/rode those donkeys or mules all the way to the top of that one town. Miss traveling with you =) Hope your having a blast!!!
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