Day 35 23/10/2014

The Yangzi is China's longest and most scenically impressive river and the third longest in the world at 6300km.  The Three Gorges Dam, commissioned by Mao, is the world's largest at 2.3km and 101m high.  It has transformed the stretch of river through the Three Gorges as a result of significantly increasing water levels, flooding thousands of homes and displacing over 13 million people.  It is however an important source of power, although no where near the forecast level due to the ever increasing population, and has protected the downstream areas which are critically important agriculture lands providing 30% of China's food supplies, from flooding.  We both got up early, Diane to join a very short tai chi lesson and Simon to go to the gym although wasn't able to use the running machine in case it woke people up in the cabins below.  Afterwards we headed down to the restaurant and met our fellow table guests, a couple from near Hove, the couple we'd seen the night before who were from north London and an Austrian couple.  They had all booked independent trips with tour companies therefore only semi lonely people!  Over the course of the trip we got to know the English couples quite well and they proved to be good entertainment at meal times.  The Austrian couple had limited English and it was a struggle to bring them into the conversation.  We had the boat almost to ourselves in the morning as most passengers went offshore to meet a local tribe.  We watched a video on the history of the Gangzi including the building of the dam and the impact it had. When the others returned and after a large lunch the boat, Victoria Lianna, set sail through the first of the three gorges, Xiling.  The local tour host, Stephen, a rather jolly guy who spoke excellent English, gave commentary whilst we sailed through laughing at his own gorgeous gorges jokes.  Later in the afternoon we got off the boat to visit the dam.  The weather was hazy and limited the views but from what you could see it was certainly impressive.  It was interesting to hear how it was built.  The locks along side provide passage for the mass of river traffic and were probably more impressive than the dam itself.  There are two sets of five locks in all raising nearly 100m and holding up to four freight ships or cruise boats plus smaller vessels at any one time.  Later in the evening we sailed through the locks.  Watching the lock gates closing behind us was a bit unnerving knowing you were trapped inside (Simon's vivid imagination resulted in lots of references to the Gates of Mordor).  Whilst passage through each lock seemed relatively quick it took nearly four hours to go through all five.  We had a good view of the floodlight dam from the upstream side as we sailed away from the last lock.  After dinner we were given s glimpse of traditional Chinese dress through the ages by the crew.  In all the time we've been in China we've not seen one person in traditional dress excluding Mao suits.