Day Next

This morning I again did not make Tai Chi at 6:00 am. Maybe tomorrow…

As I write this we are becalmed in the river. Not because we are a sailboat without wind but because of the recent floods from the severe typhoon activity this past summer. What we were told is that a very narrow stretch of the gorge ahead has had a landslide. Because of this the traffic on this major “highway” into the heart of China is like a summer Seattle road project: Alternating one way traffic. The helm has told us we will be stopped for about two hours. It is not really a problem but the scenery does not seem to be changing.

Gone are the days of brilliant sunshine. But we are in the usual weather pattern of central China, high overcast and haze. That gives an ethereal sense to the river, almost mystical. Well, yes mystical except for the garbage continually floating past us on the surface. Also because of the huge manufacturing city of 15 million upriver, Chongqing, industrial pollution is a severe problem. But as our dam tour guide, Echo, said yesterday “Yes, it is a little polluted”. I guess it is all in ones perspective.

Chinese cities here are huge. Seattle has maybe a half million. I suppose Tacoma slightly less. The major cities here are all in the 10 – 18 million inhabitants range. We were told that Yiching, where we boarded our ship, was a small city – 9 million. To get 1,400,000,000 people into the country many huge cities are needed.

Here on the Yangtze River we travel for miles through lonely, steep rural mountains dotted by small villages. This is quite a welcome and thankful change from ceaseless humanity of Shanghai, Beijing and Xian. The trip up the Yangtze will cover over 300 miles. Every night we “park” in the middle of the river until 6:30 am the following morning. That way we never miss any scenery.

After lunch today we went on our “shore” excursion as we do each day. Although we were always on the water that is what it was called. Some travel days are OK. Some days are horrid (Like the Great Wall downpour day). But, some days are just flat out awesome. This afternoon was flat out awesome. We got off our river cruiser (or whatever it is called) to get onto a smaller boat to sail up a tributary to the Yangtze, the Da Ning River. On this leg of the journey we traversed the Small Gorges. These were actually more impressive because of the narrow river with sheer cliffs into the water. But then we got off that boat to get onto an even smaller boat onto a smaller tributary. This was even more impressive using a Chinese sampan through the still narrower gorges with sheer cliffs of the Madu River. I set a personal one day record for pressing the camera shutter: 324 images. Later in the evening I needed an acupuncture treatment to relieve the severe finger pain (Not really).

The weather changed and was utterly amazing. No employees on the ship could believe it - deep blue skies with the brilliant sun. As sunny as it was the temperatures were a perfect 60-65F high. This was all compliments of the two and a half hour delay earlier that allowed the haze to dissipate before the excursion.

Thought for the day: Days like this make we want to travel forever.