rush through the Yangtze gorges

Thursday 4th April
Day 114


We rush through the Yangtze gorges

Everyone leaps out of bed at 6 am. as we go through the first of the gorges. The Yangtze narrows to 100 yards, rushing through on the torrent of water, fog horn blaring, and scattering little wooden boats before us. Steep mountains rise to 900 metres either side. Rush through all the famous gorges in the morning. Those Chinese who have cameras take many posed pictures of their friends.

Meet an Urgur. From the far West of China, near the USSR, north of Tibet. He is travelling around China, his brother is in Australia. He has wavy black hair and Western eyes. I try to talk about a yurt but get nowhere.

Suddenly the mountains drop away and we arrive at the top of a vast dam bristling with cranes. We edge slowly into a huge dock along with a few other boats. The drop is about 60 metres. Two sections of railway track are lifted vertically by enormous gantries to let the boats in. The bottom gates take 15 minutes to open. Awesome. People here have the “Speechless” phrase book, very useful, wish I had one.
 Beautiful sunny day. I feel warm for almost the first time whilst in China. This is the way to travel. The Australian gets off as we dock in the evening. The ferry only stops once or perhaps twice a day.
 The two Chinese in my bunk and the one opposite have befriended me. We get on very well with sign language, drawings, and lots of hot tea. Usually I eat with the Japanese guy, the German girl has befriended a business man in 2nd class.

4th class 33 yuan,
3rd class 8 bed, sink, desk, communal trough loos, 58 yuan,
2nd class double rooms, shared private cubicle pedestal loo, 120 yuan.