Shibaozhi pagoda, Wushan, Three Gorges Dam, Jingzhou (Viking School)

Day 6 -- March 22
Shibaozhi

After spending the morning cruising (Sondra passed up the Chinese language lesson -- Carolyn chose to add to her skills) we landed at Shibaozhai in the afternoon for a walk through the town to a beautiful red pagoda nestled into the sheer cliff of an island in the Yangtze. The town is an entirely new (10 years old) relocation city. No part of it existed prior to then -- now a million and a half people live in vertical splendor compared to their former life. However, there is no industry to support the population and it is completely dependent on tourism. Our young female guides and the plethora of street vendors seem to be the only people at work in the town. Some residents were playing cards or mah jongg in their garages open to the street, while other garages had been turned into shops. But even the shops moved into the street to better accost the tourists as they walked by on their way to the pagoda. The island was reached by a swaying pedestrian suspension bridge which landed us on the island about 30 steps above the entrance to the pagoda. For those who climbed the pagoda (Carolyn did; Sondra did not) it was then 99 or so steps up the 9 stories of the pagoda. The wimpy tourists walked around the outside of the pagoda and then back through the town as it rained. Many of the shopkeepers closed up in the rain while most of the remainder hawked umbrellas or coolie hats in addition to their usual wares. S and C both picked up some goods -- C proved to be by far the better bargainer.

Each day is closed with a briefing on the next day’s activities, dinner, and some kind of evening entertainment. The boat stays tied to the pontoon platform for the remainder of the night and sets sail early in the morning -- the river is considered too dangerous to navigate at night.

Day 7 -- March 23
Wushan

We sailed through our first of the gorges at 7:30 this morning. This is the Qutang Gorge, and is the smallest of the gorges. The water has turned a beautiful blue green and is now much more appealing than the yellow-brown we started out on. There is still loads of commercial traffic on the river: open barges of dirt, gravel, coal, sand, bricks, and who knows what else, plus barges with containers, covered cargo, ships loaded with automobiles, ferries with trucks side-by-side and end-to-end. Water taxis ply the channel as well. There are also passenger ships which sometimes raft right against Century Emerald (our boat) when we are docked at a pontoon. At Wuhan we left our big boat and climbed onto a couple of tour boats to better tour the gorges. These were just too cute with bright green and yellow pagoda-shaped structures on the shallow-draft hulls. In these gaudy vessels we toured the next two gorges. The river is at 161-164 meters; full pond is 175 meters. The river and its lake are going down as they prepare capacity for the monsoon months, May and June. The gorges are spectacular: vertical faces often 800 meters high for several miles. We saw Rhesus monkeys and white mountain goats, but not many of either. And we have seen precious few birds outside of Beijing and Xi’an and Chongqing. The mountains are craggy, pointy, and rocky -- inhospitable to say the least.

The new relocation towns all look almost deserted. There are many apartment buildings in each town under construction -- and each building has several identical siblings. One of the reasons the towns look like ghost towns is that the government gives relocating families a new apartment according to the size of the family, but the apartments are cavelike. Families can add windows as part of their individual upgrading, but until they do the apartments are open to the elements. Power is scarce despite the dam, and so few lights are on in the apartments. Very few people are on the streets save the shopkeepers, and out here in the countryside there are few opportunities for employment outside of the tourist trades, guiding and merchandise hawking. The countryside is outrageously mountainous with slopes from 60 to 90 degrees, and farmers grow their crops on narrow terraces. It looks pretty scary. Every town, built on one of these hillsides, has hundreds of steps from the water up to the town and then a family’s apartment may well be a 7^th floor walk-up. Higher buildings have elevators, but they are more expensive and there are fewer of them. These terraced farms which cling to the mountainsides also have a considerable walk to a set of stairs down to the water. Some towns are now being connected by highways, but many of these farms have no access other than by water -- and few seem to have their own boats. We’re pretty sure the homes are unheated (the new apartments have indoor plumbing -- but we doubt that they have hot water) and we question the quality of construction, as they appear to be much older than their years.

Back on board our vessel we had another big lunch -- this time our lunch companions were two couples from Israel and one from Canada -- though most of the travelers are from the US with a smattering from Australia, New Zealand and Canada so far. They are mostly white, with a couple of black women, a few ethnic Chinese and an ethnic Japanese couple (from Indianapolis, out of Honolulu.)
Tonight we’ll start our journey through the ship locks -- we’ll likely stay up only for the first lock (I think there are four.)

Day 8 -- March 23
Wushan to Three Gorges Ship Locks

Here we transferred to two tour boats -- too cute yellow and green pagodas on steel hulls. We don’t really look like American tourists, do we? Whatever. We toured the Lesser Gorges with more vertical walls of granite and impossible narrowly terraced mini-gardens. The rape is just coming into bloom, so there are swaths of bright yellow painted across the mountains.

After dinner we started through the giant locks of the Three Gorges Dam -- the world’s largest turbine hydroelectric dam. Going through each lock we descend 20 meters in about an hour total elapsed time. The w l y. It’s all so well automated that it’s almost boring -- no need to watch all five locks!


Day 9 -- March 24
Three Gorges Dam

BIG. Everything in China is the biggest, the oldest, the first, the newest -- but this one really is the biggest. Once again, no people in sight other than shopkeepers, hawkers, tourists, guides, security guards. For all that we see there is no person present in the operation of the dam. It’s 2000 meters long, with 26 turbines, each generating 700 MW of electricity -- none of which goes to the locals, it is all shipped off to the big cities. 6 more turbines will be installed when they are built, The country desperately needs power to serve all the people -- population control will stem the growth but they are still way behind developed countries.
After touring the dam we piled back on board and plied further down the Yangtze. The scenery has changed dramatically, from serious mountains to flat farmland and evidence of light manufacturing. Cities are no longer 100% relocation cities, so the old construction is a lot of one and two story buildings. Some are even painted!

Day 10 -- March 25
Jingzhou

Our excursion today is to the primary (our elementary) school sponsored by Viking Cruises. 800 students in pre-school through 6^th grade. They entertained us with musical productions -- cute kids with all the moves from MTV -- and later in their classroom with rote recitations. With 50 kids to a classroom with one teacher they could hardly do more. We were encouraged to bring gifts of candy or snacks -- Carolyn obliged but Sondra, the curmudgeon, opted to make a donation to the school instead.

Back on the bus to the boat we stopped to take pictures of water buffalo lounging in a field. They only work for a couple of weeks during the year when the fields are plowed. The Chinese envy their lifestyle, and it’s no wonder.

rape (canola)

Xi'an

Day 4 -- March 19, continued

After this tour we went to the airport for our flight to Xi’an. An A-400 Airbus, full, took us on the hour and a half flight to Xi’an where we checked into the Kempinski Hotel (German), a vast structure with huge rooms and public areas out in the middle of nowhere. We picked up a local guide, Yao (yay-oh, not Princeton or Harvard), in Xi’an. His English was excellent and his knowledge of the city quite complete. He had majored in tourism at the local university -- they take tourism very seriously. In the evening we went to a huge dinner theater where we had a multi-course Chinese dinner served by the usual army of slaves utilizing the typical lazy susan in the middle of the table. They have dumbed down most of their local dishes to suit what they perceive as western tastes -- I wish they’d let us sample some of the dishes with the authentic seasoning.

The show was what I imagine a Chinese interpretation of a Las Vegas show to be: all-girl orchestra in beautiful costumes, female singing star, dancing and acrobatics with a cast of hundreds -- especially for the tourist trade. Décor and show were over the top, of course. Xi’an is a large city and still growing, as is all of China. One of our main memories will be of the massive construction going on here. They are hell bent to relocate all of their citizens and to tear down all of the old, old villages. Huge new buildings are springing up everywhere. Hundreds of them in every city in various stages of construction dominate the landscape. Jimmy says the national bird of China is now the (construction) crane -- you’d better believe it.

Xi’an is the ancient capital of China -- the first capital of the unified cities/states. And, of course, it is famous for the terracotta soldiers which the emperor had constructed and placed around his tomb to guard him in the afterlife. It is quite a sight to see them all lined up in the pits where they were found. The slaves who built them hated the emperor so much that they destroyed all of the soldiers they had so painstakingly built -- smashed them in place and burned the wooden rafters that held up the roof.) They were buried in what became farmers’ fields, and a farmer digging a well in his field discovered them in 1973(?) and now archaeologists are carefully digging them up and putting the pieces back together. They were made in sections with detachable heads and hands. There was a mold for each soldier -- each body, head, face is unique. After the terracotta was shaped in the mold it was dried, then fired in kilns. The clay was dug on site, so digging and sorting and piecing must be very difficult -- it all looks alike! There are over 2000 already dug up and restored, several hundred in pieces and in process, and they estimate another 6000 still buried. They are in ranks of foot soldiers, archers, charioteers (the chariots were made of wood and did not survive -- only the impressions are left,) generals and other authoritative figures (only a few of these), cavalry, etc. It is a ‘wow’ experience to see them and the scope of the installation. All these terracotta soldiers didn’t do much of a job of protecting the emperor -- he died after only a few years on the throne.

We had gotten a really early start and were at the museum when it opened -- a really good thing to do since it was a Sunday and the place quickly filled with tourists, both Chinese and foreigners. Our good luck continued when we got to the airport and were on our way to Chongqing in a Boeing plane -- it may have been the last one out before the flights to Chongqing were all delayed due to fog, rain and lousy visibility. We (our group and one other) arrived at the boat on time (5:00) while the remainder who were scheduled on a later flight didn’t make it to the boat until 12:30. We had time to tour the boat -- quite elegant -- before it set sail for its first voyage as a Viking tour boat. There are 201 passengers on board (capacity 264) and 125 in crew. These attractive young Chinese fall all over themselves waiting on you. We had our first of many over-feedings at 7:30 and went off to bed, exhausted once again. I’m going to have to start being more temperate around the table -- but it is so much fun to try everything. Wine flows freely -- the quantity is greater than the quality, of course, but it is fun to have it on the table. Gaily neon-decorated dinner boats passed in gaudy array several times during dinner -- quite a sight.
The boat left the dock around 2:00 a.m. or so and we’ve begun our adventure on the Yangtze, a huge, twisting river with commercial shipping of every variety.

Day 5 -- March 20
Yangtze and FengDu

We glided almost soundlessly down the river, meeting barges, container ships, ships with truck trailers on them, fishing junks, ferries, all kinds of boats passed us or were passed by us. Some cargo was exposed, some was not. Speculating what was on the boats consumed me. After lunch we went ashore to FengDu, a relocation city only 10 years old, which was built to house people whose land and homes were sacrificed to the Three Gorges dam. They say the people were happy to move to the new town -- they received new apartments as compensation for moving from their homes. I will try to find out what these people are now doing to earn a living -- I think a lot of them are hawking tschotkes to tourists! The vendors are all over you in every town and every attraction. It’s not in the western culture to do this or to endure it, so we find it offensive. But that doesn’t matter a whit, now does it?

At the park we were entertained by a group of retirees singing everything from traditional Chinese songs to Clementine, Jingle Bells and Row, Row, Row Your Boat. They were accompanied by a small orchestra of five men playing the ubiquitous two-stringed instrument bowed by a loose bow and fingered without frets. They appear to be handmade and the players self-taught. They remind me of mountain fiddlers. The singers were enthusiastic and engaged us in a sort of conga line and some impromptu dancing. What a hoot! We then went to the mall -- hundreds of one-room stalls with mostly clothing -- some being made or altered on the premises. Shopkeepers who seemed to have little business entertained themselves playing cards or mah jongg. And, of course, the hawkers were everywhere, too.

Back to the boat and time for welcome cocktails and captain’s dinner.

Beijing

Well, we were unable to post to the blog while we were in China -- of course it didn't occur to me that the site would be blocked, but it was immediately clear when it just wouldn't load that our subversive images and comments would not be making it back to the US in a timely manner.  I kept a log, so here is the first installment.  Now my carefully inserted pictures won't load from the log!  I could only get one pic to upload from the blogger program -- I'll try again tomorrow.  Aargh!

Day 1 -- March 16 (lost a day crossing date line -- I'm not sure what the date really is)

Made it to the Beijing Airport -- here’s our first Chinese fire extinguisher.  Really.

We didn’t do much of anything that night (small wonder after the marathon flight) and the next morning  ate breakfast at the Green Fish restaurant in the hotel -- it was a vast spread, buffet style, which encompassed most any taste.  We opted for Chinese: fried rice, though not fried, had vegetables and egg mixed in, tasty dim sum, pot stickers, John Dory.  We could have eaten American, German, Japanese, British, you name it  The variety was impressive though the quality which had started out good suffered the usual fate of buffet food and was somewhat dried out though still tasty.  We were to meet our guide for the day, Jimmy, in the lobby at 8, but he never showed up.  It seems that both Carolyn and I were mistaken -- the Royal Viking trip and the four of us hurriedly decided to take in the Beijing Zoo.  Our cab ride was a fair distance across town, and not terribly expensive at 16rmb -- we tipped the remaining 4rmb of a 20.  We’re not too sure of the exchange rate since Carolyn received 325rmb for her $50 while Sondra received 1100 rmb for her $100.  Sondra will be making all future exchanges! 

The zoo was surprisingly large for being in the midst of the city, but the exhibits were decidedly old fashioned, featuring caged, pacing animals.  We did a lot of walking and returned our old bones to the hotel about 4:30.  We’ll eat Italian in the hotel’s featured restaurant tonight -- go figure.

Day 2 -- March 17

After another sumptuous breakfast we met our guide, Jimmy (?), in the lobby and climbed on one of those over-the-top picture windowed tour buses for a day and a half (at least) of touring Beijing.  The morning took us to Tiananmen Square where we thought we had walked our legs off -- the place is huge (can handle a million people -- my mind can’t even handle that many people) but is really mostly flat open space with a few buildings inexplicably scattered in the middle of the square.  It is flanked by Mao’s tomb, the congress building (it meets for two weeks each year to do all the state business -- US congress, take note) and the national museum holding down the other side.  We were unable to visit Mao (sob) and the museum is also undergoing renovation/re-building or we might have had some respite, but no, it was on to the Forbidden City. 

The Palace is not just a building, but a whole series of monumental size buildings nested like Russian kokeshi dolls.  Like much of Beijing they have been restored and the decorations re-painted for the Olympic extravaganza, so they look absolutely gorgeous with their brightly painted friezes, eaves, rafters, corbels, etc.  dragons abound, as do lions and various symbolic and mythological figures.  We were all absolutely pooped when we finished the tour as we rushed through the nested courtyards and buildings with their moats and acres of pavement.  Then after a huge buffet spread lunch we climbed back on the bus and went to see the Summer Palace.  Built on the only hill in Beijing -- there are surrounding mountains, but they don’t count -- the palace is a little more manageable in size, but set on 800 acres which I’m sure we saw every inch of.  There is a magnificent covered, colonnade walkway which stretches for ½ a mile -- literally.

  Beautifully painted beams with scenes from Chinese myths and stories line the entire walkway.  It’s amazing -- and we walked every inch of it.  Vendors of every imaginable schlock tourist item accost you at every step both here and outside the gates of the Forbidden Palace.  And of course they are of the most obnoxious variety, accosting you at every step.  They are young and old, male and female, and the merchandise is the same, over and over (though the prices aren’t, of course.)  We fell back on the bus and could hardly keep our eyes open on the way back.  We had a drive-by visit to the Olympic venues, for which the bus didn’t even slow.  Dinner at the hotel was yet another gorgeous buffet -- this one far more elegant than the spread at lunch at the Nikko.  Can’t wait to fall into bed but I wonder whether or not we’ll be able to get out of it in the morning.  Guide Jimmy has promised that ensuing tours will not be as strenuous.  That’s good.  I never thought we could make it through today so we sincerely hope tomorrow is easier.

Day 3 -- March  18

Well, today we hit the wall -- The Wall, that is.  We were warned to wear all the clothes we’d brought with us -- and it was just barely enough.  Cold and wind discouraged us from walking much of the wall, and it was overcast to boot.  But that didn’t stop it from being an awesome sight. 

Many steps, acute slopes, but what an accomplishment.  I think the whole thing must have been built with slave labor, because no one in his right mind would have done it voluntarily.  And all set in craggy mountains with rocky outcroppings that at one time people even terraced and tried to farm.  The soil, however, wouldn’t support agriculture no matter what Mao said.
We went for another massive spread of a Chinese lunch and then walked through the Ming dynasty tombs including the sacred way -- an allee of pine trees with massive stone sculptures 400 years old which guard the path, a small moat around the grounds, and massive gates at either end.  More painted friezes and royal lions -- and a giant turtle with a stele on his back listing the glorious accomplishments of the various emperors. 

The empresses are buried with them -- if they died first they were interred in separate tombs, then their remains moved to be with the emperors after they died.  The park was monumental in size but strangely passive -- just a long, straight walk through these great stone statues.  The actual tombs were not visible.
For the evening’s entertainment, we were bused to another hotel for another huge Chinese banquet, this one featuring Peking duck and a poor red wine -- drink the beer!  Once again, many of the same Chinese dishes on the lazy susan, though the quality of the Szechuan dish was better.  We’re learning to eat off little plates using chopsticks which we wielded clumsily.  Dessert is small wedges of watermelon.  Next we went on to the theater for Peking opera selections.  The dress, acting, make-up and songs are very stylized -- it was certainly interesting.  Much of what we do is VERY touristy and consists of presentations designed purely for the tourist trade.  I (Sondra) find it somewhat off-putting and look forward to a change of pace.  The days are full and we are happy to see them end.

Day 4 -- March 19 (I think)

This morning we checked out of the Ritz-Carlton and went into old Beijing hutong where we went for a “rickshaw” tour of the narrow streets where houses are centuries old:  small bungalows of about 1000 sq ft total -- little cells of rooms around an open courtyard.  Our host, Mr. Wong, and his family have lived in their bungalow for some 200 years.  During the cultural revolution more rooms were added for another family -- it was unclear how many people this included, but a good portion of their space was confiscated.  In this old city area there are no sanitary sewers, there are public toilets.  The home had running water -- cold in most of the area (sink in the living room) though there was a solar hot water system for showering.  They were quite proud of their on-site shower and hot water.  The rooms were quite small by our standards, maybe 10x10.  This is the entrance to the Wongs home.

Food was lying in the open in the kitchen though there was a refrigerator, microwave, two burners and quite a bit of counter space.  The area really reminded me of a mobile home.  Beijing is a dusty city and the home was very dusty as well.  Mr. Wong retired from his choice job in a foundry at 55 and is now 57 -- full pension, $400 a month, which allows him to pay his bills and play mah jongg.  Their daughter still lives at home and her pictures all around the home showed a very pretty young girl.  There are far more men than women in China because Chinese families prefer boys and are likely to abort female fetuses, so daughters will surely marry.  We didn’t find out how old the daughter is.  Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Wong spoke much English, it was all done through Jimmy, our guide, who would translate for them.  The family had a non-descript small, fat dog, 12 cats and at least 8 caged, good-sized, colorful birds.