Three Gorges and Yangtze River Cruise
The boat trip through the Yangtze Gorges and on the great river itself is highly recommended, not just for its spectacular scenery but also for its history and tranquility. Bring binoculars, a telephoto lens if you re a camera bug, and some books about the river.
The scenery includes sheer cliffs and mountains rising up to 1,000 meters on both sides of narrow, rushing water, old towns cut by slender lines of stone steps, and a hill almost lined from top to bottom with a pagoda. You can hear reproductions of ancient chime bells, and see a 2,000-year old gentleman. You might race a dragon boat and look for wild monkeys and hanging coffins. You will see signs on hills showing the new water levels after 2009, towns and temples that will be flooded, and the largest dam in the world being built. You will see social history: ships still unloaded by strings of men carrying coal in baskets on their backs. If you go up the Daning River or Shennongjia Stream, you might see Tujia men pulling boats upstream with shoulder harnesses and chanting in the old way.
The Yangtze Gorges were created 30-50 million years ago as a result I of collisions between the Indian and the Eurasian continental plates. These formed the Himalayas and its foothills, primarily made of lime- stone, except for the site of the Three Gorges Dam which is granite. The I Yangtze River is a busy highway. Aside from a few short sections, there has been no road along the river between Yichang and Chongqing (There is one being built now.)
Guides should tell you stories of the Three Kingdoms, but bring your I own books and maps along because the ships' information is sketchy: a copy of Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles, John A. Hersev's A Single IPebble, or Caroline Walker et al's On Leaving Bai Di Cheng, the Cultures of China's Yangzi Gorges. Probe International's Damming the Three Gorges is an lenvironmental group's readable critique of the feasibility study of the pproposed dam. Van Slvke's Yangtze,Nature,History and the River also describes the foreigners who lived here. The Romance of the Three King- doms, a historical war novel, has been translated into English, and you will encounter the names, statues and temples of the heroes in many places in the Yangtze valley: Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, and Zhuge Liang- and their arch enemy, Cao Cao.
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