'Cruising the Yangzte River"

We flew straight from Chengdu to Chongqing, the largest city in China with 33 million living with the municipality - HUGE! We didn't get chance to explore the city as A) it was late and night and B) we had a 5* luxury cruise to catch! The 5* luxury wasn't quite as we were expecting - you know large pool, cocktails on tap etc but it got us down the Yangzte without sinking so we were happy!

We spent the next 3 days cruising along the 3rd largest river in the world and got to know a little about what is happening here with the dam project and all of the excitement surrounding this. The dam project has been work in progress since 1997 (or earlier really with all of the plans and preparation) and by its completion in 2009 will be the largest natural source of power in the world. The project is intended not only to provide power, but also control flooding along the river area in future. By building the dam they have raised the water level along the river from around 40m to 156m currently and this will be 175m in 2009. It is hard to imagine how high this is until you see the markers along the river of where the level is now and what difference another 20m will make. The 175m mark often stands higher than existing homes, businesses etc. As you can imagine, there were many local villages and houses alongside the river as this provided a source of food and business for fishermen and the government have had to relocate 1.3 million people in this project, whose homes are now already underwater. All along the river you can see these huge newly built towns that look like ghost towns with empty buildings waiting for people to move in...it's actually quite eery！It's also quite sad that alot of their ancient history such as old Ming dynasty pathways, old buildings etc have simply been lost under the water. The project is projected to cost around $28 billion US, with around 40% of that cost being attributed to the relocation of towns, villages and all of the people along the river.

All along the river you can see these huge newly built towns that look like ghost towns with empty buildings waiting for people to move in...

Across the 3 days onboard we stopped off at temples, the 3 gorges area and mini gorges along the way to explore. One of the 3 gorges we explored by Sanpang boat to travel upstream and be paddled by 6 very stron local fisherman. At one point they had to get out of the boat and drag us and the boat by a rope against the rapids - amazing strength. We also partook in actvities onboard - Nick volunteered for some Chinese medicine and I'm not sure he knew what he was getting himself in for. Next thing he was on stage with 4 acupunture needles stuck in his knees and calves and was being rigged up to an electric machine - woh, we didn't expect that! The needles were poked in quite a way (maybe 10cm) although he says that he didn't feel a thing...I was about to pass out...particularly when the needles started moving with the electricity passing through them! Then he was giving 'cupping' treatment http://users.tpg.com.au/mortphys/Cupping.htm , another form of Chinese medicine. They basically light the inside of a glass jar and then place it upside down on a part of your skin and the lack of air pulls the skin. It is supposed to bring impurities to the surface...but fortunately he wasn't too red after, so clearly he is quite pure!!

The climax of the trip was getting to the dam area and passing through the huge lock gates (puts Foxton to shame) to drop the 100m to downstream. We then visited to dam the following day to see its enormity (the photos will help to put it into perspective) and hear a little about how...it used the 'Guiness Book of Records' amount of this and has the longest in the world that! Very impressive. A quick ride to Yichang to chill out, have a coffee and lunch and then board our overnight train to Xi'an.