A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Three Gorges, Yangtze River, China

Final Report

The scenery on Day 2 got progressively nicer as the day wore on, more rural, higher mountains, and lots of waterfalls, most of which will be submerged. The interesting thing about this section of the Yangtze versus all the other rivers I've been down is that there are very few small homes or shacks with people making a subsistence-level living off the river. The buildings along the way, even when they're buildings in the middle of nowhere, are usually good-sized houses or enormous hideous apartment blocks. Every so often there will be a city high up on the hill, which tens or hundreds of similar personality-free buildings. .

The boat continued to annoy on Day 3. When I headed up to the top floor seating area early in the morning I got hassled again, either for more money or to leave altogether, I'm not sure which. I argued with the girl, neigher of us understanding a single word the other was saying, and obstinately refused to move. I honestly didn't understand this boat's unwillingness to provide places to sit outside your crowded cabin. I created absolutely no additional work for the girl on the top floor -- she spent her whole day playing mahjiang and doesn't even sweep up the floor. I hadn't seen any Chinese pay the dollar fee but then again I didn't see too many Chinese up there at all. They also closed the "dining room" for most of the day, so that was out too. So basically the only place to sit down on this boat (free) apart from your own bunk was the scary lounge on the bottom floor, which closely resembled a bus station waiting room, and not one of the nicer ones. Honestly, would it kill them to provide a little customer service?

The day got worse, as we were supposed to get on a smaller boat to view the Lesser Three Gorges for six hours, but due to overnight rains and high water, the trip was cancelled for safety reasons. So we sat at this hideous dock for 3 hours while they unloaded cargo off the bottom floor, during which they turned out all the lights. I mean geez louise, could they make that boat any more unfriendly?

Fortunately, that was pretty much the low point of the trip. My extreme crankiness of the morning was dissipated as we started through the gorges themselves. They were really beautiful, as I've come to expect from China, with rocky cliffs and vegetation of an amazingly intense green. The area brings to mind old Chinese landscape paintings, vaguely misty with dramatic mountains and amazing waterfalls all over. As we got closer to Yichang, the city nearest the big dam, the terrain began to look like a fairy tale, with impossible shades of green, strangely shaped mountains and trees, and streams and waterfalls popping out of every crevice. Of course, anytime a building was in the frame of vision it rather spoiled the illusion. During the 1950's China welcomed Soviet advisors to assist them in the development of the new Communist state and promotion of industrialization. Sadly, though the Soviet line of communism didn't take here, the Chinese appear to have wholeheartedly embraced the concrete block-style architecture so popular in Russia and parts of eastern Europe. There's nothing at all quaint or attractive about modern Chinese towns and cities. It's a real shame considering their amazing and surreal settings -- the juxtaposition is almost painful to see.

All in all the trip was a bit of a letdown. The boat was inadequate, to say the least, and I didn't get to see the Lesser Three Gorges, which looked amazing in the photos. Of course, the boat looked amazing in the photos, so maybe those are all dumps too. I'm glad I did it, though -- although that stretch of the Yangtze will still be a beautiful area once they raise the water 175 meters, much of the drama will be missing with a wider river and shorter hills, and ancient ruins like the stone chariot road completely submerged. Time will tell if the Three Gorges Dam is the wild success the Chinese predict or the disaster feared by environmentalists and other concerned onlookers.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 1:30 AM