China May 15 Three Gorges Dam

The start of the first full day on board the Century Sun.

Thankfully we didn’t wake much before 7am, it was a restless nights sleep but at least we slept in a little. We opened our curtains just in time to see the last of the sunrise, the light through the “fog/mist/pollution as reminiscent of a chinese painting.

On reflection our decision not to do the optional ships tour or Tai Chi was a wise choice.

Breakfast was noisy, the boat is full, around 300 passengers, with close to 50/50 split Chinese nationals / Caucasians, with our group the only natural english speakers. The food was much more limited than the hotel and not quite the same quality.

Our tour group has exclusive use of a VIP lounge where we can go and sit at the front of the boat and have coffee/tea and biscuits away from the crowds.

We went to two lectures in the morning. The first given by the boats doctor was on Chinese medicine. He was very evangelical in his delivery which was a little off putting for us (the Americans didn’t seem to mind it too much) but it was interesting and insightful into the basis of traditional Chinese medicine.

The second lecture was on the Yangtze River (or more properly the Chang Jiang – the chinese only refer to the part of the river near Shanghai as the Yangtze) and the Three Gorges Dam. The lecture was given by the boats hotel manager, he and his family had lived in a village that was submerged by the dam waters, for many generations. They were given a choice to either move upstream to a similar village, or down stream into a modern city. They chose downstream, much to the disappointment of his grandparents, but it was best for the family as a whole. Approximately 1.3 million people had to be relocated when the dam was built, it was very hard on the elderly.

The dam was primarily built for flood control and hydroelectric power. It produces around 97.6 billion kwh of electricity annually, originally this was forecast to be 15% of China’s power requirements, but on completion it was less than 3%, China had developed so fast between 1994 and 2015, the start and completion years of the dam construction.

Big news a bit before lunch, Georgiana’s daughter Emily had her baby, a girl, Haley  ?. Both mum and daughter are doing great. Georgie is so excited, and at lunch she had photos to show around. Such a happy grandmother  🙂  was lovely sharing in her joy.

All meals on board are buffet style, with a mix of Chinese and western foods. Our tour manager Melinda called by our table with a plate of local specialty food for us to try, chickens feet. It was interesting watching the reactions of people around us. Deb and I have had, and enjoyed, them before, but I think they were a bit too out there for many of our fellow travellers. Some did dive in and try them (and enjoyed them from what I could see) but most left them well alone.

Our tour this afternoon was meant to kick off at 2:45pm, but a rain shower delayed the start. We eventually got away about 30 mins late and found out on the way that one area we were going to was closed due to the rain. Our first stop was a viewing area on the eastern side of the dam where you could see the downstream side of the dam wall. Lots of people there, mostly nationals. The dam wall is 185m high x 2.3km long (5 x larger than Hoover Dam, 16 million cubic meters of concrete was used in its construction, a world record). There are 2 lock systems (5 locks each) one for upstream and one for downstream boat traffic, and also a boat lift (yes a large container full of water which smaller boats can float in and be lifted up and down). It can take days for boats to get through the locks due to queues waiting to use them. The lake formed by the dam extends 600km upstream. We then went to the western downstream side to look across the dam wall to the locks and lift.

Three Gorges Dam wall

After dinner tonight we were all invited to the Captain’s welcome drinks in the level 5 bar at 8:30pm . After a translated welcome speech the Captain and heads of departments did the rounds through all the guests for  “selfies with the Captain”. While this was going on some of the crew hit the dance floor and danced a few routines before inviting some guests to join them. An interesting event, we have crossed that one off our bucket list and don’t need to revisit it.

Tomorrow we have a day exploring the Gorges as we cruise upstream.