Every country has its
"must do" list of things to do for visitors, and for China perhaps
number 2 on that list (after the great wall which we haven't seen yet),
is a journey down the Yangtze river. Getting the facts and figures out
of the way first, the Yangtze is Asias's longest river (3rd in the
world after the Nile and the Amazon), features the worlds largest dam
(in terms of width), the largest fresh water lock system, the largest
hydroelectric power system, and as a result of the dam, required the
relocation of a staggering 1.39 million people (more if you believe non
government figures). Perhaps the greatest reasons for visiting are the
three gorges sections, which are dubbed as China's grand canyon.
Arriving in the monstrous urban conurbation of Chongqing (30+ million
people), we had a couple of days to site see before joining the boat. I
personally found Chongqing a difficult place to like - its busy and
smelly, and has shocking air polution (apparently by EU standards,
99.9% of Chinas urban residents breath in air of unnaceptable
standards). One of the highlights of a visit to the city is supposed to
be the local favourite dish, which is "hot pot", where you place your
ingredients into a hot bowl of spicy broth, and then when cooked, eat
with chopsticks. Unfortunately we must have chosen the wrong
restaraunt, as all our chosen ingredients arrived already cooked in a
bowl, everything tasted weirdly of soap, and we both had to spend ages
picking the chilli seeds out of our teeth afterwards. (Fortunately, we
have had much better hot pots since). On the plus side, the staff at
the hostel were as friendly and helpful as ever.
We both had a great
time on our cruise ship, and felt guilt free at doing practically
nothing for three days other than watch the view from the deck. The
three gorges themselves were great, but the highlight was the excursion
to the lesser three gorges on the Dani river, which had almost vertical
cliffs many hundreds of metres tall. The dam itself was also
impressive, as were the massive ship locks (each 250m long) that the
cruise ship squeezed into, along with ships carrying coal and other
freight.
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