YANGTZE RIVER CRUISE

October 18, 2014

October 18th, Part 2

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When we woke up, we had already docked at our next stop. It was a wet, drizzling day. Across from where we had docked was the Yangtze River. We were tucked away at the mouth of the Shennu Stream for the "Goddess Stream Excursion". More...



As we awaited our off-ship excursion, we had a great view of the towering mountains around us. Across from us were building built up the mountainside as well as a lighthouse on the point which adjoined the Yangtze River. While we waited, I visited the nice artist who created paintings inside jars, etc, to pick up my custom Lucy necklace. When it was time to disembark, we travelled through another river cruise ship to get to the walkway which led us to some smaller craft which we'd use to navigate the stream. Our path to the small craft took us through a succession of ships to reach that dock. Many of these ships seemed to be permanently placed. There were even souvenir shops along the way. As we navigated towards the smaller boats, we never walked on the actual shore (land). At the end of our short walk, there were MANY small craft located there to take tourists upstream. Our entire group was able to fit into the craft. The captain asked that no more than 4 people stand at the back of the craft at any one time (weight distribution) but that wasn't a big problem since it was drizzling quite heavily for most of our voyage up the stream. The water was a really nice green but the FANTASTIC scenery was somewhat marred by all the garbage in the stream which we were told came from the Yangtze. The small craft had windows on both sides as well as in the roof. This allowed you to look up to see the cliffs towering over us. At one point along the stream, we had to wait our turn to go through a narrower section. One rock face had "hanging coffins" but due to the drizzle and mist I couldn't clearly see them. For reference, the coffins should have been visible on the large bare rockface that had many caves and fissures. We learned that many of the original homes of the people had to be relocated when the Three Gorges Dam was constructed. Instead of having any flat patches of shoreline, most areas had an extreme drop-off. We saw houses and even roads tucked away on EXTREME slopes. You definitely couldn't live in this area if you had vertigo. At one point where the rock was covered in a wire frame to prevent landslides, there were boats docks at the bottom of a VERY steep incline. We saw a man making his way down that very steep slope... BRAVE!! There was evidence of varying water levels (at the water line the rocks were different colours indicating changing water levels) as well as some man made paths that led right into the water (somewhat submerged). At the boat's turn around point, there was a fairly large village. There was a small tributary of this stream located at the Yixiantian Peak. That tributary was barely wide enough to fit a small row boat yet five families live down its meandering path. Upon returning to our ship, Alma and I invited "the girls" (Marlene, Kathy, Barb, Liz, Linda and Kelly) to our room for wine. It was then that I learned of the proposed "007" painting caper. Marlene and Kathy showed me the painting that little Barb coveted. As we continued along the Yangtze, we saw even more beautiful sites as we passed through the Woo Gorge and the Qutang Gorge. Later, we had a rehearsal on the 6th floor of the ship for talent night. Our group presented a skit that evening which basically told of our experiences in China. We counted off in Chinese (as we had been almost from the start) then proceeded to tell the audience how it was "all about the sites, traffic, the Wall, happy room (washrooms), beer, food, shopping, China..." as seen through Charlie's eyes! the