Yangtze river boat cruise- three gorges damn

As part of the gap adventures tour, we took a three day tour down the Yangtze river through the three gorges. This included navigating the giant ship locks beside the damn. The scenery was beautiful along the river ( except for the lack of blue sky).




The creation of the three gorges damn project is quite the story! It started of course with the relocation of residents that lived along the river. It is estimated that 1.24 million people needed to move in order to evacuate the area that is now under water! According to Wikipedia, the 600 kilometers (370 mi) long reservoir flooded some 1,300 archaeological sites and altered the appearance of the Three Gorges as the water level rose over 600 feet (180 m). Many cultural and historical relics are being moved to higher ground as they are discovered, but the flooding inevitably covered undiscovered relics. Some sites could not be moved because of their location, size, or design.

We went on a day trip down one of the tributaries to see how the boatmen of the past used to pull the boats with rope through the shallow sections of water. But, due to the flooding, the water is now over 170 meters deep! So the men can't pull the boats as they did in the past. To please the tourists, the men run up a hill, pull the boats about 25 meters with their ropes and then get back in the boats. This seemed very fake, like a bad made for tourists attraction, but it does speak to how life has changed for the people in the region.
















The ship Locks


These locks are staircase locks, whereby inner lock gate pairs serve as both the upper gate and lower gate. It takes about four hours to get through the locks.








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