I thought our ship would leave today since this is supposed to be a river cruise, but as of the evening of the day after boarding, we still haven’t moved. Thankfully, the boat next to us moved so now we can see the mountains on the other side of the river instead of into someone else’s room.
We’re supposed to leave at 8 p.m. tonight, and I can’t wait!
Ruby and I decided not to join the hike to the tribal village today. Our meal buddies (a guy from the Netherlands and his girlfriend) told us about it. Apparently, there were some performances, but I guess I’ve seen plenty of those.
After a relaxing breakfast and some time in our room, we were both getting a bit antsy. We decided to leave the ship and explore. I wasn’t expecting much. At best, I figured we’d at least be able to have a walk so we’d be hungry enough for lunch. We were in for a very pleasant surprise!
“Which way should we go?” Ruby asked, looking to the left and right.
“How about over there?” I pointed toward a cool Chinese building that was quite a ways away. I wasn’t sure we would make it all the way over there, but it looked like a fun destination.
As we got closer, we realized that the area was a beautiful park on a peninsula that stretched into the Yangtze river and looked toward the Three Gorges Dam. We peaked into a book stop and coffee shop, situated in a beautiful house with ivy climbing up the sides. We could see the bridge that had brought us in this direction and the first place, and we decided to hurry over there. We had to be back at the boat by 12, and we didn’t want to miss lunch.
The bridge was a lovely building that was constructed of a dark wood. Ruby told me that this kind of wood was common in the dynasty when Quyuan lived. Quyuan is a famous poet who lived around 200 BC. His hometown is this area, and Chinese people remember him and his contributions to the country on dragon boat festival.
There was a little pagoda in the park, and then we could also stand on the point of the peninsula and see the dam. There was a little promontory that had a QR code and a gate asking for 10 kuai, but we decided to go around to a free area instead.
After exploring the park, we hurried back because there was a museum about the resettlement of the Three Gorges Dam, and we wanted to run through that before going back to the boat. The museum was really nice, and we ended up doing more than just running through.
The museum talked about how incredible the Three Gorges Dam was. The idea had been conceived around 70-80 years before it was completed. Ruby told me the main reason for the dam was to harness the electricity from the water, but flood control was also a big part of the dam. Everything in the museum repeated how incredible the project was, and I started to see the scope of the project when we went to the dam. Smaller boats could use a ship elevator to go through the dam, but the bigger boats had to go through boat locks that had been carved into the mountain. The guide told us that it took the boats around 3 ½ hours to get through the locks. He also said that it had taken 9 years for the military to carve the boat locks out of what used to be a mountain.
One of the biggest challenges to the dam project was moving everyone from the villages and towns that would be flooded when the dam was completed. Two million people from more than a thousand villages had to move. One display in the museum had an underwater village reconstruction to show what those towns might look like now. It would have been a bit eerie if there hadn’t been so many people crwding around to take pictures. We took pictures too!
I was wondering how Ruby thought about the dam project, and she mentioned that when she was younger and thought about it, she didn’t realize what a big deal it was for people to leave their homes behind. But now she can see what a sacrifice it was for those people.
After lunch, we joined a tour group that went to the Three Gorges Dam. We had to ride a bus for about an hour, and then when we got there, we took for escalators up to the top of a peak where we could look out over the Dam. We could see the ship locks on one side and the dam on the other. It started raining, so we opened up our umbrellas and continued wandering around.
There were lots and lots of people with lots and lots of tour groups, and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.
We met up with the rest of the people from our bus and rode golf carts down to the dam. It was quite large. Thankfully, there were fewer people here, especially when we got away from the main group at another lookout point. I breathed a little easier.
Finally, we headed back, and rested a bit before dinner. After dinner, the boat finally started moving! Ruby and I went onto one of the decks and enjoyed the night breeze and looked at the black outlines of mountains around us. A spotlight up above shone onto a small circle of light on the shore. I assumed the captain used this to guide the ship.
We are finally moving!!!
