Cruising down the Yangzi

The moutain city, Chongqing, was my next port of call. Although not really that mountainous, it certainly lived upto another reputation of being one of "China's summer furnaces" with me sweating profusely, locals staring curiously at how wet I am. A heavily industrialised region it also was the perfect example of a polluted Chinese city, with a thick smog lingering over it for my whole time I was there. So I got talking to a local about football and such other idle conversations, he was however eventually trying to sell me a tour, which I went along with because the first time it was something I wanted. Was I being conned though? Seemed like a large wad of cash I had just handed over for a boat trip.

Not having a clue what I had paid for, I turned up the following day to jump on a bus to the port at Wanzhou. Five uncomfortable hours later we arrived at our ferry, I settled in on my rock hard mat(tress) and we started cruising. Drinking companions were easily located, an English couple, an Irish couple and Wally from Oz (everyone else was Chinese), but we were severly disappointed when we had finished all the beer on the boat in a matter of 4 hours.

Approaching 11pm and half drunk we were informed we had a temple to visit... Suddenly out of the pitch black river banks lights started switching on, one by one up the hill to the top where a large building in red neon lights appeared. Yes, it was the most unspectacular, un-atmospheric, rather tacky temple ever to grace the Yangzi river with accompanying junk stalls selling everything from ninja swords to soft porn.


A tour of the Little three gorges followed the next day, with very close cliff walls rising from some of the cleanest water I've seen in China. Although most of the day was spent enjoying the hazey sun from our chairs, it was interesting seeing all the villges that have moved up the hill to avoid the 25 more meters the Yangzi has to rise behind the big damn. Another underwhelming late night temple visit, this time with an adjoined show, in the evening annoyingly kept me up and from vital alcoholic concumption time.


Deprived of sleep, I woke early to the sound of traditional Chinese music and cabin mates hocking up phlegm and spitting. We were quickly whisked away into a side gorge, put into narrow dragon boats and given an ore each. A short race followed before the outboard motors kicked in and took us to a floating platform where we took a short walk into some spectacularly narrow gorges and were treated to yet another bizarre show of mystical ancient chineseness.

The final leg of the trip we were dumped at the three gorges dam, ferried around in a bus to observe it from various angles, from which most were hindered by thick smog. Impressive structure though. Left in the city of Yichang, I somehow ended up sharing a hotel room with an Italian travel snob who spent most the evening preaching to me about the negative impacts of tourism and how he wasn't a tourist! He was above the rest of us somehow.