The Three Gorges Dam Project

April 13, Tuesday

Today we started our cruise thru the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. The first of the Gorges is the Qutang, the second is the Wu Gorge, and the third is the Xiling Gorge. They are very beautiful river country and each is beautiful in a different way. The Three Gorges Dam Project has filled to capacity late last year so the Gorges are not as deep as before but are still impressive. Many people have been displaced to new towns that are above the waterline.

Our off-boat excursion this afternoon involved getting into smaller boats to cruise up a Yangtze tributary, the Daning River which has its own gorges…the Lesser Gorges. Then we got into even smaller sampan boats to cruise thru the Mini Gorges of the even smaller Madu River tributary. The tributaries are where the ancient Ba people lived…they are mostly noted for their Hanging Coffins which are placed high above the water level on shear cliffs. We were able to see 2 of them from our small boats….wooden coffins placed in caves.    

 There were other beautiful scenes along the River as we cruised further downstream on the main course:

We arrived at the Three Gorges Dam Project late at nite and received permission from the Navigation Authority to proceed thru the locks at midnite. It took 4 hours to traverse the 5 sets of locks and to descend 90 meters. The groans and squeaks of the boat and the locks and the rushing water in and out of the lock chambers managed to keep quite a few passengers awake. Also thunder and lightning from a passing weather front also added to the nitetime creepiness.