Compared to the great scenery of yesterday, today was more modest. Also, it was a travel day, where we caught a flight from the river city of Yichang to Shanghai.

We spent the morning checking out the Three Gorges Dam. We had a hilarious guide for this – Max. He kept referring to himself as “Max” as in, “Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t forget that Max told you to be back at the bus in 30 minutes.” Also, he was a great joke teller. His demeanor reminded me of my friend and climbing partner Michael. Here’s ole Max telling us about the dam:

And here’s a panorama of the dam:

There’s a mountain that overlooks the dam. It has an eerie resemblance to Chairman Mao lying down. “They say” that since Mao approved of the dam idea but died before it was even started, that his resemblance lies on the mountains above, sort of overseeing the whole operation. Here’s a shot (see the head on the left and the beer gut?):

We then went through the easter portion of the Xiling Gorge, which was enjoyable of course, then we came upon another dam (whose name escapes me) in the city of Yichang. This dam was wider than the Three Gorges Dam (just by a little), but not nearly as tall. We had only one lock to go through then were on our way. The town, or city, of Yichang is scenic. Beautiful Chinese architecture clung to the edges of the cliffs and there were some neat pathways cut into the cliffs.

We had a great farewell lunch of hamburgers. As we left, low paid Chinese workers came and hauled our luggage out on sticks balanced across their shoulders. Sturdy folk.

I also had to say goodbye to “Apple” and have my picture with her. She was our waitress essentially and had a great sense of humor and smile. I love the name “Apple”.

I’d long been wanting to see the skyline of Shanghai and it was exciting to finally land and see it. We went to our comfortable hotel, had an excellent (but long) Sichuan dinner, up on the 39th floor of the hotel. From here, we got a good panorama of the city at night. In the distance I could see Pudong; I had to go down to the Bund tonight to see it at night and take pictures, no telling when I’d be back.

My folks and I headed down and enjoyed a stunning walk along the river looking at the modern buildings of Pudong and the gorgeous colonial buildings of Shanghai. More street vendors and beggars to deal with, not to mention the smell of pee now and then. But the view was great. Both sides of the river were lit up like Christmas. It’s hard to say what city has the best skyline: Shanghai or Hong Kong. I guess, if I had too, I’d give the nod to Hong Kong still. The view across Victoria Harbor is bigger (though Hong Kong is much smaller than Shanghai), but what keeps Shanghai in close competition is the awesome colonial buildings on the old side of the city. Check out the pics:

This morning started early, around 6am as we approached the first gorge along the section of the Yangzi known as the “Three Gorges”. The morning was cool and a few low clouds hung around the entrance to the first gorge. The sunrise was nice through the clouds. The gorges reminded me of the a bit of Diablo Lake in the North Cascades, another large body of water surrounded by towering mountains. While the Yangzi lacks the impressive snowcapped peaks high above of Diablo Lake, the lower ramparts of wooded cliffs are more dramatic. Here are a cupla pics:

Around mid-morning, we pulled into the town of Wushan where we hopped onto a smaller boat and went up the Daling River through an area known as the Little Three Gorges. Three more gorges awaited us, though they were by no means little. I suppose the “little” comes from the smaller river.

The port of Wushan:

More scenery:

Even higher up stream, we boarded even smaller boats (holding about 20 people) and went up an even more narrow section of the river. Along the way we were able to see the “Hanging Coffins” – coffins that had been lowered in ancient times down the cliff faces and placed in shallow caves high on the cliffs.

There were singers and a strange hermit guy playing a primitive Chinese instrument that we passed by. I caught some video of it.

This section of river also had a few decent waterfalls. Being so accustomed to the Cascades where every valley has a raging creek pouring into another creek or river, the Yangzi was completely different. Whenever there was other creeks, they were tiny. But, this changed once we got higher up stream. Still, they were teeny falls compared to the Cascades, but seeing some of them emerging directly from the walls above was pretty neat.

See the falls to the right?

We also saw several wild monkeys. One section of the river was called something like “The Haunt of the Monkey Lords” Here’s a shot of the dramatic terrain nearby. Of course, having done so much hiking and climbing in the Cascades, as I looked up the steep brush-choked gullys, I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like trying to climb them. Anything like Johannesburg?

Here’s a shot showing the 175 meter mark that the Yangzi will rise to once the river is complete. Many things will be underwater:

Back on the main boat, we had lunch and then cruised through the second major gorge. Around this time we figured out how to get to the really good observation deck (probably weren’t supposed to be there since it belonged to the upgraded suites that no one was occupying this trip, thankfully), but I spent a good amount of time on the lounge chair reading and taking in the scenery. (I haven’t had too many vacations like this…so many years spent raving and suffering in the mountains.) A bit later, we started through the final gorge, the longest section. Before we could finish it, we came upon the huge Three Gorges Dam project. Scheduled to be completed in 2009, it will be the largest hydroelectric project in the world. We went through the lock system (5 locks in all) in about three hours (had dinner in the mean time). It was pretty cool watching the huge gates open and close. I made a small movie of it.

Here’s a shot of the locks (movie link is above):

One interesting thing about the “Three” Gorges is that the third gorge, the Xiling Gorge, is really in two sections. So why not call it the “Four Gorges”? ‘Cause it’s much better luck to say “Three Gorges” and say that the third gorge is divided into eastern and western sections. The word “Four” in Chinese is frowned upon because the sound of the word is very close to the word “death”. The word “four” is “si” tone 4, the word “death” is “si” tone 3. Not cool. NOT COOL.

I kept the balcony door to my cabin open all night. I went to sleep with the sound of splashing water and passing barges and didn’t wake up once. In the morning, the landscape had changed…no buildings now. The river is crowded though. Every few minutes a barge or several small fishing boats would pass by.

Around lunchtime, we arrived at the small city of Fengdu also nicknamed the “Ghost City” because there is a temple on a mountain nearby that pays tribute to the “King of the Underworld” and features numerous interpretations of the Afterlife. The city of Fengdu pictured here, however, is as new as 1992 (though you would never guess that…it looks much older) because the old city has been evacuated in anticipation of the completion of the Three Gorges Dam. In fact, much of the old city is starting to be underwater, but there is a long way to go until the entire old city is submerged. The dam is expected to be completed by 2009; it’s on schedule.

We went up into the higher part of the city and explored around, visiting a store and the storeowner, apparently a fairly well-to-do person, but something that was quite shocking to many of the other tourists. There were some lovely rice paddies nearby too.

Rice paddies and rice paddies through red salvia:

Afterwards we visited a market in the north side of Fengdu.   This was a very large farmers market with all sorts of food.   There was a huge vegetable market where I finally saw the dong gua, one of the mellons that is common in China.   It looks like a huge zuchini – about two feet long!   There were also the usual curious meats too.   Lots of pig snouts, chicken feet, and even rabbit ears submerged in water.

Market in Fengdu:

So far, this was my favorite part of the trip – the city of Chongqing. I was curious about seeing Chongqing, China’s largest city with a population of 32 million. Ever heard of it? (I believe the old British name was “Chungking”) What must a city like this look like, I wondered. We left Xi’an for Chongqing on China Airlines in rainy and misty cloudy weather. Once we broke through the clouds, I could see the sharply undulating green landscape. As a matter of fact, the city has nicknames like “The Mountain City” and “The City of Fog”. It reminded me of Seattle in a way. The city hung in a soupy fog and the roads twist and turn tortuously along steep hills. Two rivers, the Yangzi (or more *accurately* the Chang Jiang) and the Jialing Jiang confluence in this city. There are several bridges connecting different sections of the city across the massive rivers, most being under construction!A small section of Chongqing (this pic looks more cheery than most):

The rain continued as we disembarked from the bus on our first stop, a zoo that housed some of the famous Sichuan pandas. One adult panda proudly displayed a great dance move at almost every turn he made. He’d sit down and stretch his paws towards the sky and then twist his body in the direction he wanted to go. It got lots of cheers from the crowd. Later on, even better, was a 6-month old panda. I’d heard about this one before – apparently he was conceived by the zookeepers showing the parents some panda pornography…or something like that! Anyway, this little fellow was very playful, running and jumping, then playing with a ball and climbing into a tree, much to the consternation of the zookeeper.

Here’s the long (3-minute) movie of the pandas (lots of action).

We then went to a nearby art studio to learn about some of the local art, mostly paintings on silk canvases. I ended up parting with some of my hard earned money by investing in a sweet panorama of the Three Gorges painted on a silk tapestry. For original artwork though, it was a steal. I’m looking forward to putting it over my fireplace, but I’ll need to find a reputable place to put my North Cascades panorama.

After the art studio, we went to old town Chongqing. This was fascinating. This is a small and rapidly disappearing section of the city that is the way China has been for many many years. In fact, according to the guide, most of Chongqing was this way as early as only 10 years ago. But, with China’s economic boom, most of the old parts of the city have been replaced by more modern high rises (though many are still shabby, not nearly as nice as Shenzhen). We started on a rise overlooking the old town and then descended into the madness. The smells and sights were powerful, almost too much for some of the tourists. It was a little unfortunate that we went down as such a large group (almost 30) because we caused so much staring, but it was still fascinating regardless. As we descended the soggy stone stairs, I saw the most primitive hair salon ever: inside a small stony covering surrounded by food and other vendors were two chairs. One man was having a hair cut and the other his hair washed by the garden hose. Though it was still afternoon with plenty of light, there was so much overhead vegetation and then the darkness of the stones caused the picture to be too dark. I did take some other photos as you can see below.

There were all sorts of street salesmen here (still no DVDs that I saw). The food smells were pungent. Lots of vegetables, hanging meats, outdoor cooking were all around us. A woman was hanging her laundry on the tenuously strung powerlines above. A little girl, no more than six years old with a huge cleaver was chopping nuts. All in all, we spent maybe 30 minutes strolling through Old Town (it’s not very big and may not last…so hurry), but it was something that I won’t forget any time soon.

After seeing the colorfully colorless old town, we made our way down to the banks of the Yangzi, just before the confluence, where we boarded the Victoria Empress to begin the three day cruise down the river through the Three Gorges.

Boarding the ship:

Chongqing from the Yangzi at night:

Today we saw the famous Terra Cotta Army of Xi’an. This is a very impressive discovery that was made in 1974, very recently! There are 8000 life-sized and unique warriors here, including infantry, cavalry, and archery. When I say “life-sized”, I exaggerate a bit. They’re on average about 6 feet high, which is fairly big by Western standards, but enormous by Eastern. The emperor apparently wanted something imposing. Anyway, I did not realize two things: 1) How big the complex was and 2) The majority of the soldiers are still buried! The reason the remaining soldiers have not been recovered is that the archaeologists want to wait until there is a solution to the problem of the original paint fading away. Apparently, when the first soldiers were unearthed (after being discovered by a now-famous peasant who demands money for pictures), the original painting faded and vanished within a matter of minutes.

The following day we visited a similar site, a modern museum that housed similar findings to the Terra Cotta Warriors. These were basically a huge collection of clay dolls, representing court officials, concubines, and eunuchs. There were also hundreds, if not thousands, of small domesticated animal statues. These were discovered in the 90′s and the museum was built just last year. The museum is modern featuring glass floors which allow you to peer down into the dig sites. The thing that I remembered thinking was how many more relics are still waiting to be unearthed around here?

Panorama of a large sections of warriors:

In the morning, after arriving in the delightful city of Xi’an the night before, we hit a place called the “Small Goose” Pagoda. It’s a peaceful calm place, very quiet. And the peace and quiet was accentuated by a light rain. The rain was welcome because the day before had been very dusty. Xi’an is infamous for the powdery dust that kicks up in the wind. The only thing that will tame it is rain, and the rain started the night that we arrived. Great timing.

It was great just wandering around the grounds near the pagoda. There was a man charging 5 Yuan to ring a giant bell (it brings you good luck of course) and there was a band of girls playing traditional Chinese music.   Nice. I shot a video of both and made this little movie.

After the pagoda, we hit the south gate of the city wall around Xi’an, the old wall that surrounded the city in ancient times. It was still misting some, but it was very pleasant sauntering around on top of the wall. Of course, there was a gift shop in one of the towers (the pagoda is the only place I think I did not see a gift shop thankfully) which was full of stamps, clothing, and expensive furniture. The merchandise is completely different from the stuff I see in Shenzhen. I still haven’t found a DVD salesman.

A neat neighborhood as seen from “the wall”:

Although the Forbidden City is easily the most famous site within Beijing, my favorite was the Temple of Heaven, generally considered to be the second most famous site in the city. The Temple of Heaven site is much smaller than the Forbidden City, but the one plaza or square that featured the historic buildings was much more colorful. Even better was an absolutely delightful park that we passed through enroute and on our return from the Temple. The park is popular for local folks, mostly older people, to come and sing, play cards, dance, and exercise. We passed along a long roofed passageway, much like a veranda, where hundreds of people participated in all sorts of activities. On either side of the walkway were small squares with ballroom dancers, folks doing Tai Chi, playing cards, or whatever. The most curious was actually a solo woman standing apart from the crowd behind a tree facing the wall that enclosed the park. She would sing and shriek and then stop, clear her throat, spit, have a bit of tea, and then start again. I shot several videos on my little camera and put them together into a single movie of the park. You can see the woman at the very end.I joined in some of the activities:

Here are some pictures of the Temple of Heaven. The notable thing about the structure is that it is made completely out of wood…no nails either. The grounds around the temple are surprisingly free of the street vendors. I have no idea why.

Panorama of the temple area: