China Day 13
Yichang to Wuhan
Not much to report today as it was primarily a travel day. Last night at about 11:30 PM we entered the ship locks at the Three Gorge Dam. I was packing my suitcase and getting organized for our departure today when I thought I'd go out on my cabin balcony and see what I could see in the darkness. To my surprise, I was confronted with bright lights and a cement wall! We had just entered the first lock. It was absolutely fascinating to watch the ship lock process. Since the ship was in the lock with my side against one side of the lock I decided to go up to the top deck so I could see better. There were lots of folks up there in their pajamas, rain notwithstanding!! One of my traveling companions was there too and we wound up staying up there till 1:00 AM. We watched through the third lock, by which time we decided it was time to go to bed, since we had to be up early this morning. It was amazing to watch the whole process. Those lock chambers are pretty big - there were two cruise vessels and three huge barges going through the locks at the same time. I was amazed as we passed into the second lock and the gates closed behind us. We could see the lock on the other side for boats going upstream. They were being lifted ever higher at each lock as we were being lowered. It was really fun to look over at the other lock and all of a sudden ships started appearing over the edge of the wall and before you know it they are in full view! Then when the gates closed on our lock we descended really quickly, in less than ten minutes. What takes time, however, is opening and closing the hydraulic gates and then moving the ships (all 5 of them!) slowly from one lock to the next. We noticed a lot of bats flying around over us as we stood there, but figured that was a good thing since they eat mosquitos and since we were in malaria territory the bats are actually helpful!
This morning we had an early excursion to the Three Gorge Dam visitors center. It would have been better on a good weather day. It was pouring rain and very misty and cloudy so we couldn't see really well and taking pictures was not helpful as everything just looks grey! I took a couple of shots of the locks as we passed by them in the bus, so I've included one here.
We then returned to our ship for lunch and then disembarked for our 6 hour bus ride to Wuhan, an industrial city with an international airport from which we will leave for Hong Kong tomorrow. As we were leaving the ship, local Chinese porters carried the big luggage off ship. I've included a picture of how they carry the luggage! I couldn't believe my eyes as those guys hoisted 4 suitcases on the poles and walked down several flights of narrow stairs and through very narrow passageways and across the gangplanks to shore with those cases dangling from the pole!!
We took the main highway up here making a number of pit stops along the way. Honestly, the rest rooms on the highway rest stops were a Chinese cultural experience all their own. The Chinese do not "queue up" or line up for anything. They just push their way in. It was every woman for herself in those rest rooms, a truly Darwinian survival of the fittest situation when there were crowds (which there were most times since this is prime traveling season!!) And of course, the facilities were Asian style, which is its own kind of cultural experience!! Never a dull moment on this trip, to be sure.
When we entered Wuhan, an industrial city of 8.3 million people we once again saw the plethora of new high rise apartment buildings going up all over the place. Huge, cement, high rise buildings are just springing up like weeds in every Chinese city. The urbanization that the New York Times has been reporting on recently is very much in evidence here.
We checked into our hotel, had dinner and are now getting ready for an early night as we leave the hotel at 6:30 tomorrow morning. More tomorrow from Hong Kong!
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