YANGTZE RIVER CRUISE

October 19, 2014

October 19th, Part 2

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On our last full day on the ship, we had an early morning excursion to Shibaozhai to see the Shibaozhai Pagoda. This pagoda was one of the few archaeological sites that were saved from the flooding of the Three Gorges Dam. More...



The village which stood at the foot of the pagoda was lost in its entirety but the pagoda was saved by creating a ring dike around it. The pagoda was reached by walking down two main streets of the present (relocated) village then crossing a really cool suspension bridge. The bridge was VERY bouncy and when some people coming from the island where the pagoda is now located were jumping and laughing as they passed us, I admit to feeling seasick. As I indicated, a ring dike was formed around the peak which housed the pagoda. The inside of this dike now contains small stores. We walked around (the top of) the ring dike to get to the entrance to the pagoda. You actually had to go DOWN to eventually go up showing that without the dike, the base of the wooden pagoda would definitely have been under water and therefore would have been lost. The pagoda is made entirely of wood. There are 12 stories or levels to the pagoda and since it's 56 meters tall, there are many (wooden) steps to climb. The stairs get steeper and steeper as you further and further up. The final storey is reached by climbing a ladder. Along the way, you see carvings on the rock face of the mountain that the pagoda was built against as well as statues. The very top of the pagoda is very beautiful. There are carvings/statues of cranes and deer (to name a couple of the animals depicted) at the corners of the curved rooftops, Once you reach the top of the pagoda, you go through a building which houses many statues of Budhas as well as things like the ordinates (North, South, East, West) represented as people. A beautiful little garden is also situated there. Once you walk through the entire building, you must go down many concrete stairs to get back to "bridge level". There were shops along part of the way. Once back across the suspension bridge, I noticed the statues of the Chinese zodiac animals. The walk back to the ship was interesting because there were many colourful shops selling colourful things.
After we got underway again, groups were treated to a tour of the Captain's Bridge. First we went into the crew's meeting room with assigned seating for crew members based on seniority of position. Then we actually went into the bridge area. It was located on 4th deck ahead of where all of our rooms were located. The first mate was there (and in charge) as well as two or three other crew members. We saw the ships navigation systems - one being a GPS, one being radar and one being a depth indicator. We learned of the protocol for passing another ship and while we were on the bridge, we actually passed (beep, beep!!) around a slower ship. The other ship "replied" with the agreement blast of its horn.
Activities on our last day continued with a "hot pot" demonstration. The "007 painting caper" ended with me giving Barb a rendition of the painting she liked in Kathy and Marlene's room. Thus, all the girls successfully avoided seeing the inside of a Chinese prison! ;) We were told that Chong Qing (where we'd end our cruise the next day) was very famous for their particular form of hot pot. Finally, we ended the day with the Captain's Farewell Dinner. It was Linda's birthday ans she certainly got a nice surprise. Everyone sang Happy Birthday (entire dining roon) and the captain very carefully placed a celebratory hat on her head. Besides our sit down formal dinner, we were treated to Linda's birthday cake.
Final note: sorry for blurred pictures... rainwater on camera lens in some instances!