Cloudy and Sunny 25C Three Gorges Dam
Parked just below the big dam (claim to fame: most concrete ever used in a dam - 28M cubic metres) for the rest of the night, our shore excursion today was to the Dam wall to view all its different parts.
An early breakfast and onto the bus at 8:00 a.m.
Our bus trip took us across a very modern bridge and into a security
area where our bags were scanned for cigarette lighters and pocket knives. Then
back onto the bus and off to the Dam project area.
After a few photo opportunities outside the visitor centre and a quick inspection inside of the dam are scale model and the obligatory souvenir shop where I picked a replacement pair of sunglasses, we then proceeded up 5 escalators to the top of the scenic observation hill (Jar Hill). From
here the views were extensive of the section of the river both up and downstream. When the dam was built, a parallel lock system was built so that if you are going downstream you
take the south-side locks and if travelling upstream, the north-side locks. Check it out on Google maps.
There is also a “Lift” (elevator) that smaller boats up to 3000 tonnes can use in either direction. This we find out was
used 2 days prior when the President of China visited the dam and wanted to see
how it worked.
As all boats now require permission to pass through this section of the
river, there are only cargo ships and tourist boats that are granted
permission. They must book in advance to go through the locks and a time is allocated for
the ascent or descent.
From the top of Jar Hill, there are a number of viewing platforms and other items of interest (e.g.) a giant stainless steel book with a brief explanation of the construction of the dam in Chinese and English.
The dam was built mainly for flood control purposes (it flooded around every 10 years devastating the communities on the banks, thousands were killed and more became homeless) and also for hydro electric power generation and irrigation. At the time of construction (1994) it was to generate 10% of China's electricity. Today - it still generates the same volume of electricity, but now only accounts for 1% of China's supply. The communities which were displaced were provided with new accommodation in the new towns developed 100 metres or more above the old river bed.
The tourist industry is booming here.
Around midday, we re-board our ship and head downstream towards our overnight port of Jingzhou. There is a lot of traffic on the river with many barges full of
coal, or rocks or chemicals. Fairly quick transport to travel inland for up to 1600 km. There are many bridges crossing the river and a lot are similar in design. There is plenty of noticeable construction of bridges, roads and many, many multi-story apartment blocks, some up to 60 stories high in the larger cities along the river.
We pass through another lock after lunch. This is just
one stage and we watch from the forward Observation Lounge until the boat has entered the
lock before going to lunch. This section marks the end of the Three Gorges and
for the afternoon we notice the scenery is changing to much flatter farming and industrial land and a much wider river.
This afternoon I went to a presentation on Chinese Pearls, I can now tell the difference between a real pearl and a fake pearl. There is a lovely pearl shop on board which sells them for a lovely big price !!
This is followed by another presentation on Modern China which is very interesting, our Program Director Patrick gives us very interesting talks and always includes a few jokes to see if we are still awake. They go for 45 mins which is about the limit for most of us. Patrick tells us about Mao's four pest campaign which was his decision to kill all sparrows, rats, flies and mosquitoes. In the following years there is a locust plague and with no natural predator (the sparrows), they destroyed crops and (officially) 15 million (unofficially 45 - 78 million) Chinese starved to death in 3 years. This subject is taboo now in China as it appears that people killed and ate family members to survive.
We attend the Port Talk for the following days’ program and then onto dinner which is a Western dinner, New Zealand Lamb with mint jelly, delish!
The boat finally moors in Jingzhou during dinner, so
tonight we are stationary throughout the night, this is a first since boarding. No diesel engines to lull us off to sleep.
2025-02-11