Yangtze River Cruise

Bev just before we decended the 100 steps down to the rivers edge.
Our boat is the one you see there is another one docked to it on the other side.

Dragons greated as as we embarked.

Part of one of the gorge areas. The high water line is from one of the previouse bad floods.

More pics soon, I have to get some sleep!!!

The last part of our trip and the high point was a cruise down the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River is the 3rd largest river in the world only superseded by the Nile and the Amazon. It begins in the center of China and flows all the way to Shanghai. Our cruise was from Chongqing to Wuhan, downstream. A major middle portion but less than 1/3 of the navigable river. This is the way to travel if you have less time. Three days on the river and you cover well over 1000 miles. Going upstream takes one day longer for the same distance.

Cruise Ship and Tour Link

Each day we had one major shore excursion. The ship is long and has a flat bottom. It is one of three sister ships on the river all made by a German company powered by three diesel engines at over 1000 hp each. It could carry up to 300 or so passengers . We had 250 for most of the trip. Most were Chinese, but we did have our group of about 50 that had our own tour guide, Howard, who spoke very good English. The 50 were not all Americans but could understand and speak English.

Our first afternoon and night we were docked on the river. We left the next morning. We were worried that we were going to have some very heavy dense clouds that were almost like fog for the whole trip. But that was primarily the first day. When we entered the gorges areas it was very clear and sunny.

1st Cruise Day Shore excursion to Fengdu Ghost City.
2nd Cruise Day Shore excursion to Shennong Stream by smaller vessels, Peapod boats also.
3rd Cruise Day Shore excursion to Three Gorges Dam site after passing through an amazing lock system.

After the cruise we were bussed to the airport for our 2 hour flight back to Shenhzen, we had a pickup scheduled and were home just an hour after that. Wow what a great trip. It was even more fun to travel with friends from school. There were six of us and then we were joined by another couple for the cruise portion of the trip.

I felt fortunate to see what we did as much has been flooded due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam project. The largest Day in the world. It is still filling and will continue to do so for two more years. Around six million people have been displaced by the construction of the dam. The dam is suppose to provide 10% of all the electric power used in China. That would be a lot!

Three Gorges Dam Project info Click Here.