Our journey to Yichang, from where we would explore the Yangzi River and infamous Three Gorges Dam, was very complicated. We first took a four hour bus, and then an overnight train, although we were in soft sleepers this time, so only four per cabin and we had a door - luxury! Dinner on the train was not the best, but edible. This was followed by another lengthy bus ride to where we would board our boat. It was further complicated by the fact that Leon, one of the Kiwis in the group, was always late and Xin, our group leader, was always hurrying is everyone, often with no reason.
The room on the boat where we would spend two nights was muggy, the bed linen damp, the AC wasn't working and the carpet was wet. Other than that, they were fine. However, whilst fast asleep, I woke up at 6am the next morning to a lady blurts out a "Chinese" wake up call on the boat's speaker system. This was follows by some loud and bad Chinese music, just to make sure you didn't go back to bed. There was no missing the very average Chinese breakfast in favour of a lie in on this boat.
Most of the group decided to skip the welcome party. I joined in one of the games where the instructions were given in Chinese - not a surprise that I didn't win. Having said that, Patrick from another Intrepid group won - hmmm. Leon, Dave, Leon's dad, and I joined the other Intrepid group for a few games: musical chairs, leap frog, human pyramid and best of all, karaoke. This included each of us singing our national anthems which was quite amusing.
The boat ride through the first gorge wasn't great, mainly as the weather was very overcast. We took a rowing boat out where our sweet local guide entertained is with her singing (yes, more Chinese ballads). The views got better through the second gorge. It reminded me of the high, green hills of Marlborough in New Zealand's South Island.
Due to the building of the dam, some one million people had to be relocated, and according to our local guide, were all happy with it - believe that if you want. We had the dull opportunity to walk around a town built for some of those relocated. Whilst there was little to look at, our walk proved very interesting as this random Chinese girl kept on saying Hello to me as I passed with some others from the group. As I bought ice cream for others in the group, she asked me to buy her one. Guide said I should for a laugh and she then decided she wanted a photo with me and felt that I should have her phone number and home address. The group found all this hilarious.
We visited the dam itself the following day. The dam, though a very ambitious project, was not visually appealing - it was basically a very large block of concrete, but the Chinese were clearly very proud of this project, which will be completely next year. The dam is almost 2km long creating an artificial lake extending 670km upsteam.
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