Three Gorges Dam - Cruise

If you look closely at the white house you can see a white marker with 175 m written on it, that's where the water will rise to.

The man in his undies, I threw in for all of you!!

The ship lock, where the black line is that is how far we dropped in that one ship lock.

Farmers used to go to the house attached to pray for rain for their crops. This house too, will be covered by water.

Hello! It has taken me soooooo long to get on this site, computers and phones definitely do not work the same on the road as they do at home! Three days ago we boarded a small cruise ship to take us through the Three Gorges and then ended up at the Three Gorges Dam. The boat experience was awesome. It was my first time on a cruise boat, which was pretty exciting. And, we got to stay for longer than 2 days, which meant I could really relax! Our itinerary for the days on the boat was to sail on the Yangtze River through the 3 gorges, go off the boat for a couple land excursions and end off with a tour of the Three Gorges Dam. The river itself is really dirty, but the trip was fabulous. Day 2 of the trip we had 4 hours to tour a town in which in English is called "Ghost Town". It was quite the hike to tour through a temple and see some Buddha statues. The weather was so trippy, it was rainy and foggy and the higher we got the more foggy it became. It was a good hike. The scenery was awesome, and the temple, although nice, looked an awful lot like the other 30 temples we have visited so far. That night, after buying a bottle of Vodka for some of the girls in the group, we decided to let loose seeing as how we had our beds so close, a bathroom to ourselves (just in case) and didn't have a big day ahead of us, which hasn't happened this whole trip. The boat had a bar, which was ideal. We had a awesome night with all the other tour groups on board! The next day we were going to be passing through 2 of the 3 gorges. I guess I wasn't sure what to expect, but these gorges are absolutely breathtaking. They are so lush, large and we were a tiny speck in this majestic scene. That afternoon we took another boat on a kind of side trip down the river. Unfortunately, for many of the people living along Yangtze River, they will have to relocate as the river is expected to rise 175 m in the next year. It was quite sad to see all the markers showing exactly where the water will rise to and see how much of those towns will be under water. It is crazy to imagine how these people must feel when they look at the markers! They will lose everything, crops, shops and homes. What a sad reality. The side trip lasted a few hours. Our boat trampled over a dead pig floating in the water and what I think was a dead goat. Like I said, not the nicest or cleanest water. That night we passed through 4 ship locks. I have never been through one, and it was pretty intense. These locks work very similar to stairs. The boats enter, lock into the wall and the gigantic, solid steel doors close behind. When they are closed, the water will either rise or sink depending on whether you are going upstream or downstream. For us, we sunk. Each lock, we sunk about 75 feet. I can't explain how strange it was to be on the deck and watch our boat gradually drop. It's amazing how people come up with this stuff. I've attached a few photos for visual aid. Today was the last day of our cruise, and we passed through the last gorge. Again breathtaking, all gorges are very similar to each other. After we passed through we took a quick tour to the Three Gorges Dam. It's quite large and was interesting to visit.

Right now I am in a town called Three Gorges town. We are only here to spend the night. Tomorrow my group will board a private bus for 5 hours to the train station and board another overnight train to Yangsho for 2 nights. I haven't really checked out my itinerary lately, so I'm not sure exactly what we will be doing there.

Will write soon...!!!