First Day of Yangtze River Cruise

April 12, Monday

Today I boarded the River cruise boat, the Victoria Princess at 9am and the boat left the dock at about 1030 with just less than 120 passengers. The boats in the photo above are not our boat; those are coal barges. Shortly after getting settled we had lunch followed by a talk from the River Guide about the course and flow of the Yangtze River which is the 3^rd longest river in the world.  It flows from its source in the Himalayas across the high Tibetan Plateau and winds its way for 3964 miles through central China before it empties into the East China Sea just north of Shanghai. It has over 700 tributaries. It’s Chinese name is Chiang Jiang which means “long river”. We will cover the length from Chongqing to Shanghai in 7 days.

We cruised away from Chongqing downstream the whole afternoon.  We were delayed getting away from the dock for some reason as the Navigation Authority (The River traffic is monitored like Air Traffic Control to avoid problems going thru the dam locks and to spread out traffic).  After dinner we stopped at the “Ghost City” of Fengdu. It is believed that all souls after death must go to Fengdu to be judged there. There are a series of temples on a hill above the old city of Fengdu, requiring 700 steps unless you take a chairlift which allows live tourists to skip 75% of the steps.  The old city in now under water about 50 meters since the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam is now filled.  On the opposite shore of the river a brand new city has been built housing all the displaced residents.

Here are some photos of the temples up on the hill: