We got a train from Chengdu to Yishang, the only reason being that it was one of the only places we could get a connection to Zhangjiajie. When we looked Yishang up, we realised you can see the Yangtze River and the three gorges dam. We were originally going to take a cruise down the river, but due to time constraints, trains and money, we decided against that. We hoped to be able to take a day cruise or just go to where the three gorges is located. When we arrived in Yishang, we only had a full day there after arriving in the morning, so we found our hotel and checked in. Luckily, the receptionist at the hotel spoke a little English, so she confirmed that we could take a local bus to the three gorges. From our hotel, it was bus number 21, then a number 8, which goes directly to the gorges.

After we'd checked in, we went to catch the bus to the there gorges dam. If we had 2 full days here, we could've taken a day bus and cruise tour where we'd take a boat ride down the Yangtze River, but we don't, so will do it independently. So anyway, we caught the bus, then changed onto the number 8 bus. There's a small bus terminal which goes straight to the three gorges. It took around an hour to be driven there, along the way, we passed the Yangtze River, which in parts was huge. It is the longest river in Asia, so I guess you'd expect it to be.

When the bus dropped us off at the dam, we could see a huge wall surrounding it. There wasn't an entrance that we could find nearby, so we wandered around aimlessly trying to find a way in. We couldn't actually see the dam from where we were dropped as the wall was so high.
I would have expected that the bus would've dropped us off in a place that you could at least get in to see the dam, but it didn't. Today, it's quite an overcast day, so it's not a brilliant day to see the dam anyhow. We spent around an hour or so trying to figure out how to get in. The wall seemed to go on forever, so we basically decided to climb to a higher viewpoint so we could actually see the dam.

After climbing the hill, we managed to at least find a place where we could see part of the dam. We were going to walk to the top of some steps, but a local woman came out wanting to charge us for the pleasure of walking up, so we declined. We walked to another point and eventually saw the dam. It was quite foggy so couldn't see much of it anyway. At least we came to see it though. We walked around and saw that the wall goes around the whole place. So even if we'd have gone to another section, I don't think we'd have been able to get inside. I think the only way we'd have known how to get inside the place properly would be if we'd taken a tour. Although we didn't get inside where the dam is, I still enjoyed visiting the three gorges dam.