Ah announcer lady, I won't miss you waking me up! I was glad on this occasion for the first of 2 breakfast announcements, as the instructions last night were not particularly clear on the times. I ate cereal tearfully as I doubt I will see it again until I get home, and a donut with nuts on recommended by Simon (aka the Beijing Barger), which turned out to be really nice.
We didn't have much time after breakfast before disembarking for our Three Gorges Dam trip, carrying all our luggage with us as would would not be returning to goddess number 2. The bus ride was only short, and a local guide gave us some facts about the dam as we went.
Construction began in 1991, and was completed in 2008. It holds back the biggest reservoir in the world, as it has altered the height of the Yangtze for more than 600 kilometres, allowing more easy navigation for cargo ships up to Chongqing. It is the largest hydroelectric generator in the world, accounting for more than 5% of China's power each year.
It was also not a great tour. You can't get anywhere near the dam really, because if it were to be destroyed even Shanghai would be flooded, and the viewpoints are not in great places. The dam itself is long and not too tall, so it isn't particularly photogenic either, and once the introduction was done there wasn't really much else to do. It probably wasn't as bad Jade Emperor Palace, but only because it wasn't torrential rain. There really wasn't anything to do but look at a fairly unimpressive bit of concrete for over an hour.
It appears to be holding back the water so... yay?
The other thing to see was this plaque. Naked men wrestling in a whirlpool... great...
I stalked this bird for about 5 minutes too to kill some time
The second viewpoint. It is pretty long, I'll give them that
After that we had an hour's bus drive to Yichuan train station, during which we saw the third of the three gorges, and I had probably the best nap I can recall having ever! Another hour was spent eating lunch and purchasing supplies for our final sleeper train (I had 3 steamed buns), and then we boarded, this time all in the soft sleeper carriages, with a door, and lots of headroom!
Really it is quite a bit nicer than where I slept on our other trains, even though this train is older than the others. To pass the time I read, and also read some of my blog out to my roommates (Christine requested the incident that made Simon a legend: the origin story of the Beijing Barger. The post is actually called Summer of Heaven). Since we would be getting off around 5am, an aggressively early bedtime of 8pm was enacted.
We in fact didn't get off the train until nearer 6, at which point we had a 4 hour bus ride to look forward to. It wasn't so bad though, even with 8 and a half hours sleep I still had plenty of napping in me!
When I awoke it was getting karsty out
Yangshuo is by far the smallest settlement we've visited: even Emei is bigger now thanks to a huge recent development (though we stayed a little out of that there). It is filled with westerners though! Waaay more than anywhere else we've been, to the point when people almost don't stare. Almost...
We had a Chinese lunch, then I undertook some final souvenir shopping, where I made a woman sulk as she acceded to my price as I was leaving the shop. I think my bargaining is getting better! After that I lazed around for some of the afternoon, before Del and I went to climb a nearby karst in a park that we had been told had steps up to a pagoda. We had waited until the day cooled, as it is hot here. I even suffered my first sunburn of the holiday, as it was cloudy when we originally left the hotel. Only on my neck though luckily, and not bad.
The cormorant on the left is clearly more into photography
The Li river (another name for this part of the Yangtze I believe). It's not bad looking
Ready to climb, if we make it through that murder cave!
We got out
The pagoda was quite scenic
Yangshuo has a nice backdrop
This is another fairly short post, so I will regale you with some tales from the trip that I forgot at the time:
In Xi'an, just before we cycled around the city wall, we were waiting for William to buy the tickets. Nearby there was a swat van, which is different to ours, somewhat more like a tank. A swat team guy got out of it to have what appeared to be his breakfast. Out of a carrier bag came a bread thing, a drinking yoghurt, and... a handgun?! Yes, that seems like the perfect place to keep your gun, in with the yoghurt...
Fast forward to Chengdu, and the People's Park when we were having lunch. I'd just received my steamed buns in a bamboo pot thing (see below). How nicely arranged, but I felt they might need some soy sauce, and there was some on the table so why not go for it? I poured some on, but the bun didn't really soak it up, so I poured a bit more. Then I noticed that there was a bit of soy sauce peeking out of the bottom of the bamboo thing. I lifted it, to discover that it had holes on the bottom, and the soy sauce had been contained by the bottom edge, until I released it. I put the bamboo thing back down to control the situation as best I could, and called for the cloth of shame to wipe it up.
Shortly before the sauce was released
Finally, here's some guest photos:
Alfredo went much more all in on the Li river photography that me. Plus those instagram filters
He also likes to sneak into people's rooms and photograph them while they sleep. Or those could be his roommates from the sleeper train. Who knows
Only missing the unicycle...
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