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Yangtze River - Wushan to Three Gorges Dam to YichangOct 12, 2007
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....cruising thru The Wu Gorge....(1)
....cruising thru The Wu Gorge....(2)
....cruising thru The Wu Gorge....(3)
Our boat left port very early this morning, traveling thru the second of the Three Gorges, "the Wu Gorge". It was still quite dark and raining and therefore we didn't see much of the second gorge. Not too many of the rest of our troop were up to view this gorge as they had burned the midnight oil, chatting and drinking wine in Stewart's room which was next to ours.......we arrived in Zi Gui City at about 10:00 a.m. where we had a quick stroll thru the village street market and saw the Quyuan Memorial Temple which will also be submerged by water in 2009 when the river finishes rising. We returned to the dock and prepared to take part in a "Dragon Boat" Race on the Yangtze.......we all put on our life jackets and got into the boats and "raced" against another group....it was a lot of fun, despite worrying about falling out of the boat into the murky depths of the Yangtze. After the Dragon Boat Race a number of the Chinese tourists attended a local cultural show of song and dance while we returned to the boat and had another go at Mah Jong.....once again the Chinese tourists that were still on the boat helped us play......after the cultural show the Chinese tourists returned to the cruise ship and we made our way to Mao Ping, the end point for our river cruise, thru the third of the three gorges, The "Xiling Gorge. We disembarked and got on a bus that took us to the Three Gorges Dam for a quick tour and then we headed to Yichang...."a small city," as our guide James put it....only 4 million people. After checking into our hotel, everyone freshened up before heading out to get a bite to eat and to do some grocery shopping for the long bus ride and overnight train trip tomorrow......
