As part of our tour in China, we spent 3 nights on a small cruise ship on the Yangtze River, making our way through the Three Gorges Dam. The Yangtze River is the third largest river in the world (after the Nile and the Amazon). We boarded in Yichang and scoped out the scene on the boat: there were about 80 people on board and Sarah, Charlie, Holly, and I were the only Westerns on board. We quickly became minor celebrities, people were asking to take pictures with us and at dinner everyone wanted to sit at our table. We were kind of a big deal and loved it.
After a full day on the boat we made it to the Three Gorges Dam. Quite a bit of controversey surrounds the Dam - it was constructed in Sandouping, where the water level has already begun to rise in surrounding towns after only 2 years, threatening both the ecology and the people. Not only will the scenery of the river and mountains change, but there will have to be a mass relocation of the towns where the water level continues to rise. However, proponents of the Dam argue that in the long-term the Dam will increase river traffic thus making shipping along the river more efficient and boosting the economy. It was very interesting to hear both sides of the argument. The Dam is massive, I could not believe how large it is. It took our boat 4 hours to get through the 5 sections that lead to the other side of the Dam.
One night on the boat there was "entertainment" on the top level so we had to check it out. The entertainment turned out to be musical chairs, an interesting game where you tie balloons to your feet and run around trying to pop other people's balloons, an awesome dance called "Left Left Right Right", and of course, karaoke. Man, the Chinese love karaoke. Some guy rocked the female part of a duet, hitting notes that even I could not hit. Sarah might have been Chinese in a past life, she loved the noise makers they gave out to applaud and got up on stage to sing Britney Spear's "Hit Me Baby One More Time". We were huge fans of the "Left Left Right Right" dance and later surprised some people in Xi'An when we ran to join in with them in the middle of a street.
We also got to go down the Shennong Stream off the Yangtze River on small Chinese style canoes. The Stream was surrounded by amazing mountains and greenery, it was so quiet and untouched. On the boat everyone sang traditional Chinese folk songs, very cool to hear. After our cruise down the Stream we went back to the cruise ship, took some pictures with our friends on board, and got our things together to move onto our next destination.
We had a lot of free time on board as we were moving up the River and noticed that everyone else besides us was playing Mahjong so we asked the cruise director, Tommy, to teach us how to play. Mahjong is a traditional Chinese 4 person game played with domino-like tiles. Thank you, Wikipedia, for this oh-so accurate description: Mahjong involves skill, strategy, and calculation, as well as a certain degree of chance. Depending on the variation which is played, luck can be anything from a minor to a dominant factor in success. In the game, each player is dealt either thirteen or sixteen tiles in a hand (depending on the variation being played). On their turn, players draw a tile and discard one, with the goal of making four or five melds (set of 3) and one pair, or "head". Winning comes "on the draw", by drawing a new or discarded tile that completes the hand, and the winner must yell "HULA!". We set up a table, picked up our tiles, and Tommy started teaching us the rules. As we were playing an audience quickly formed around us, and before we knew it, at least 10 people were surrounding the table to watch us play and give us advice via a mixture of broken English and hand signals - it was so much fun and our fans seemed to be having just as much fun as we were.
After a full day on the boat we made it to the Three Gorges Dam. Quite a bit of controversey surrounds the Dam - it was constructed in Sandouping, where the water level has already begun to rise in surrounding towns after only 2 years, threatening both the ecology and the people. Not only will the scenery of the river and mountains change, but there will have to be a mass relocation of the towns where the water level continues to rise. However, proponents of the Dam argue that in the long-term the Dam will increase river traffic thus making shipping along the river more efficient and boosting the economy. It was very interesting to hear both sides of the argument. The Dam is massive, I could not believe how large it is. It took our boat 4 hours to get through the 5 sections that lead to the other side of the Dam.
One night on the boat there was "entertainment" on the top level so we had to check it out. The entertainment turned out to be musical chairs, an interesting game where you tie balloons to your feet and run around trying to pop other people's balloons, an awesome dance called "Left Left Right Right", and of course, karaoke. Man, the Chinese love karaoke. Some guy rocked the female part of a duet, hitting notes that even I could not hit. Sarah might have been Chinese in a past life, she loved the noise makers they gave out to applaud and got up on stage to sing Britney Spear's "Hit Me Baby One More Time". We were huge fans of the "Left Left Right Right" dance and later surprised some people in Xi'An when we ran to join in with them in the middle of a street.
We also got to go down the Shennong Stream off the Yangtze River on small Chinese style canoes. The Stream was surrounded by amazing mountains and greenery, it was so quiet and untouched. On the boat everyone sang traditional Chinese folk songs, very cool to hear. After our cruise down the Stream we went back to the cruise ship, took some pictures with our friends on board, and got our things together to move onto our next destination.
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