Down the Yangzi in a festering hulk
No sugar coating on this one - apart from a stretch of spectacular majesty in the 3 gorges area, the Yangsi is a sewer. A depressing sewer which is now becoming blocked as the 3 Gorges Dam starts to come online.
'China is blessed with a precious resource' the shameless propaganda DVD they showed us said as the camera zoomed in on a large block of concrete. The DVD mentioned how wonderful the Yangzi was as a river, and how much better it would be as a lagoon.
You could call it mist if you like, and there is probably an element of that hanging about in the charming stuff blocking our view of both river banks, but we guess there's also a fair bit of smoke involved.
Not being able to see the banks, our attention was drawn to the river itself which is notoriously silty, and suspiciously free of birds or fishermen.
Of course, it could be that our perceptions of the Yangzi were tainted somewhat by the fact that our 2nd class cabin came complete with heavy odour, unwashed bedlinen, flooding bathroom and a rat. Unlike the Chinese trains, these boats are not swept fanatically. In fact, you're lucky if they even empty the garbage. That's private enterprise for you. And unlike the trains, there's nothing to eat, at least the kitchen seemed to close every time we got hungry, anyway.
Enought whinging, and onto the interesting bits... As you drift down river, white signs on the banks indicate where the water will rise to. The initial stages of the dam have already been finished, and the current water level is 140m - it will then rise to 153m and again to 170m. In expectation of this, ghost cities are a major feature of the 2 day, 3 night trip - either old cities below the floodline which are being torn down, or shiney new ones looming above, waiting for the lights to be switched on. These are to house over a million people who have been living below the future high water line. They're quite eerie, looming through the murky air as they do - no lights, no neon signs, no glass in the windows. Elsewhere people are busy pulling down other towns and cities, breaking up stone and concrete and carting off anything useful.
We visited Wushan in which both demolition and construction are happening at the same time. From a distance it looks empty - brand new tower blocks with blank windows hovering above a huge demolition site. But once up the hill, the streets were bustling. We stopped in at a hairdressers for a quick shampoo and head massage, then walked down the street and stopped to watch some people making popcorn in a heated pressure vessel which exploded violently into the sack they had ready. Everywhere people said hello (sometimes then ducking their heads so we couldn't tell where it had come from, but usually with big smiles).
Things got a little livelier later that day as we moved through a part of the river which seemed to have some life to it, and into the Three Gorges themselves. Centuries of poetry has been written about nature's grandure, mists etc, inspired by this area, and with good reason.
Then, late on the last night we reached the lock system which now takes boats through the dam. We started around 10pm and were finally through the 4 locks by about 2am. One or two more locks will be built which will make the difference in water level from top to bottom over 100m by 2009 (and I can tell you, seeing the doors close behind you, and imagining the 20m of water being held back there is a bit scarey, even if they are the biggest doors you've ever seen).
We found a satellite picture at http://perljam.net/google-satellite-maps/id/2195/China//Shanghai/Three_Gorges_Dam
From what we can gather, we went through the skinny sliver of water near the northern bank - so there was a lot more of it that we didn't see.
'China is blessed with a precious resource' the shameless propaganda DVD they showed us said as the camera zoomed in on a large block of concrete. The DVD mentioned how wonderful the Yangzi was as a river, and how much better it would be as a lagoon.
You could call it mist if you like, and there is probably an element of that hanging about in the charming stuff blocking our view of both river banks, but we guess there's also a fair bit of smoke involved.
Not being able to see the banks, our attention was drawn to the river itself which is notoriously silty, and suspiciously free of birds or fishermen.
Of course, it could be that our perceptions of the Yangzi were tainted somewhat by the fact that our 2nd class cabin came complete with heavy odour, unwashed bedlinen, flooding bathroom and a rat. Unlike the Chinese trains, these boats are not swept fanatically. In fact, you're lucky if they even empty the garbage. That's private enterprise for you. And unlike the trains, there's nothing to eat, at least the kitchen seemed to close every time we got hungry, anyway.
Enought whinging, and onto the interesting bits... As you drift down river, white signs on the banks indicate where the water will rise to. The initial stages of the dam have already been finished, and the current water level is 140m - it will then rise to 153m and again to 170m. In expectation of this, ghost cities are a major feature of the 2 day, 3 night trip - either old cities below the floodline which are being torn down, or shiney new ones looming above, waiting for the lights to be switched on. These are to house over a million people who have been living below the future high water line. They're quite eerie, looming through the murky air as they do - no lights, no neon signs, no glass in the windows. Elsewhere people are busy pulling down other towns and cities, breaking up stone and concrete and carting off anything useful.
We visited Wushan in which both demolition and construction are happening at the same time. From a distance it looks empty - brand new tower blocks with blank windows hovering above a huge demolition site. But once up the hill, the streets were bustling. We stopped in at a hairdressers for a quick shampoo and head massage, then walked down the street and stopped to watch some people making popcorn in a heated pressure vessel which exploded violently into the sack they had ready. Everywhere people said hello (sometimes then ducking their heads so we couldn't tell where it had come from, but usually with big smiles).
Things got a little livelier later that day as we moved through a part of the river which seemed to have some life to it, and into the Three Gorges themselves. Centuries of poetry has been written about nature's grandure, mists etc, inspired by this area, and with good reason.
Then, late on the last night we reached the lock system which now takes boats through the dam. We started around 10pm and were finally through the 4 locks by about 2am. One or two more locks will be built which will make the difference in water level from top to bottom over 100m by 2009 (and I can tell you, seeing the doors close behind you, and imagining the 20m of water being held back there is a bit scarey, even if they are the biggest doors you've ever seen).
We found a satellite picture at http://perljam.net/google-satellite-maps/id/2195/China//Shanghai/Three_Gorges_Dam
From what we can gather, we went through the skinny sliver of water near the northern bank - so there was a lot more of it that we didn't see.
posted by Wednesdays at 12:38 AM
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