From p&q@peter-quita.demon.co.uk Sat May 15 11:57:58 1999 Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 17:18:51 +0100 From: Peter Brown Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: canals@blacksheep.org Subject: Trip report - Yangtze River (long) You haven't heard from me for three weeks because I've been on holiday in China: Beijing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, Chongqing, Xian and Hongkong. The tour included a five day cruise up the Yangtze River from Wuhan to Chongqing on the 'Princess Jeannie' - I have done a separate report on the highlight, the trip in a small boat through the Lesser Three Gorges. The following notes are extracted from my holiday diary. 30 April: In the early evening we were welcomed on board the 'Princess Jeannie' by an inexpert but enthusiastic ten piece brass band. We were soon under way, staying outside at the front, as the boat passed under the road/rail bridge, under a partially completed suspension bridge and into the darkness. 1 May: The boat travelled through the night and on through the day. This is broad countryside, with flood defences restricting the view, the settlements showing only their roofs. The river meanders and the boat tends to follow the outside of the bends, the water being deeper there, and even in the straighter sections we tend to be near one bank, presumably because the downward flow is slower at the edges. River traffic is heavy and varied, most interesting being where one boat, not always being a purpose-built push-tug, is pushing several others, often seemingly irregularly tied together. If only two boats are involved, invariably the stern of the one under power is well behind the stern of the other, even if the boats are actually the same length. On board we had a briefing about Chinese geographic history, a demonstration of the making of dough dolls and an introduction to Chinese medicine and acupuncture, given by the ship's doctor. After the Captain's reception (with a weak sparkling cider doubling as champagne) we had a visit to the bridge. The equipment and controls are labelled in a mixture of Chinese, Russian & English. The wheel is an eight inch horizontally-mounted off-D shape; alongside are the bowthruster controls. The person steering seemed very young! The long-haired Captain too is younger than captains ought to be. A few statistics about the 'Princess Jeannie': built in 1992 by Elbewerft Boizenberg to a Russian design; gross tonnage, 5,936 tonnes; length, 420 feet; beam, 50 feet; draft, 9.5 feet. 2 May: Overnight we completed our journey through the flat lands, reaching Yi Chang at sunrise. We turned into the lock cut, going slowly through the fishing vessels with their trawl nets suspended from bamboo rods, with at the other end of the boat a counterbalancing bamboo frame - when this is pulled down, the net rises. We had an hour's wait before passing through the only lock on our journey, the Gezhouba Ship Lock; first one passenger boat, two carrying coal and three with aggregates came down. We then shared the lock with three other boats: one of the local passenger boats, a boat carring containers and one travelling unladen. The lock, which is about 900 feet by 110 feet with a 70 feet lift, took about fifteen minutes to go through, very smoothly with no turbulence. The ship's guide said it was filled by gravity but I think it was at least power-assisted, as the last few feet of lift did not take noticeably longer and there was a slight outflow of water when the top gates opened. (She later said that a 70 feet lift was about the maximum possible for a lock with conventional mitred gates. I had not appreciated there was a maximum.) This lock bypasses the dam built in the 1970s, then the largest hydroelectric scheme in China. The next few hours were spent going up the first part of the Xiling Gorge. This used to have the worst rapids, but is now a lake penned by the Gezhouba Dam. It's a spectacular limestone cleft through jagged peaks, generally steeply sloped with a few narrow side valleys. In some places ledges are cultivated; in others people have attempted to cash in on tourists, this being one of the most popular areas for Chinese to visit on their holidays. We moored about midday at Yang Jiawan, lunched, then took buses to visit the Three Gorges Dam construction site - we had a pleasant young lady guide who kept getting the giggles and who sang us a couple of songs at the end of the trip. This is the largest construction site in the world (we were told): a dam 1.3 miles long and just over 300 feet high (between water levels), plus a ship lift for 3,000 tonne boats and a paired five-rise staircase for 10,000 ton vessels. Figures don't give the true impression. It will be huge, huge, huge ... Currently it is a mess of building sites, deep excavations, coffer dams and concrete- making plant. We went up to the viewpoint at the top and then to one beside the diversion channel. Mid-afternoon the boat went on through the Xiling Gorge, finally dropping anchor midstream near Badong. This has been an unforgettable day though regrettably unphotographic - even without today's haze the scale would have overwhelmed the camera. The hills on both sides were spectacularly high, and in some places the cliffs were vertical. The hillsides were densely green, with terraces for crops seemingly inaccessibly rising in various places. I was surprised at the amount of industry, most notably coal-mining. One seam in particular, thick in the shale, dipped diagonally from the heights to the river, with a mine near the bottom, from whence chutes fed boats. Elsewhere too there were flimsy bamboo trestles, the coal being brough from the mines by road. Quyuantuo was the ugliest town I have ever seen - it will be flooded when the dam is completed in 2009 - no loss to anyone, we thought. On the river we saw much traffic, included a boat carring cows on top of a load of coal. Flat-fronted boats of various sizes were moored end-on to the banks. The 'Golden Dragon' had a race with our boat which the former eventually won after much cutting-in and hooting. 3 May: Up at 6.10am to see the anchor raised and us get under way in heavy rain. We watched the progress through the Wu Gorge from the comfort of the bar. We moored at Wushan for the trip up the Daning river [see separate report], having taken a bus through the narrow streets of the town, the driver using the horn more than the brakes. In the mid-afternoon, after hot noodles and tea, the boat set off through the Qutang Gorge, the shortest of the Three Gorges. We stood outside watching progress and trying to photograph the unphotographable. Once out of the gorge we were in an industrial section of the river, with coal mining, limekilns, cement making, shipbuilding and numerous grey factories with unknowable products. The industry tends to be close to the river, often linked to it by chutes or inclines like funicular railways. The housing (almost invariably uninspired flats) is usually higher up. The river is the distribution system, so we passed many laden boats. In the evening we listened to a talk on Chinese kites, then went to the 'Jeannie Follies', songs & dances from crew members - enjoyable. 4 May: The boat had travelled on through the night, at its usual speed in the evening but slower though sleeping hours, mooring at Wanxian during breakfast. Today's excursion was into the town, which has 400,000 population, and will be one-third flooded when the dam fills up. When we disembarked we were accompanied by the brass band and two dragon dancers. The afternoon cruise was done in the pleasantest weather of the last few days: sunshine, later with thin cloud. The atmosphere was clearer, enabling us to see better the green fertile steeply-sloping hills and, up valleys, the mountains beyond. Today the purpose of what I had thought were guard houses became evident - they are signal stations regulating the river traffic. Outside each is a vertical red & white striped pole, beside which are two large arrows with red heads and white tails; one points up and one points down. If the upstream arrow is raised, we can proceed, but if it is lowered, we must wait. As we get further upstream and the landscape broadens, the river becomes shallower, the boat following the narrow marked passage from side to side. 5 May: 'Due to rapidly dropping water level in Chongqing and associated reduction of docking space & increased navigational hazards, our vessel will dock at Fuling. Passengers and baggage will be transferred to Chongqing by hydrofoil.' Presumably the shallower river would also have meant a slower journey and a greater chance of being delayed by one-way sections. Exactly at 9am we left on hydrofoil 'Dragon' (renamed for the occasion, I suspect), one of three used. These are basic Russian-built craft with no on-board facilities except indescribable toilets. The 70 passengers would have to share 24 life-jackets in an emergency. Fast, though - about 40mph we estimated - so we got to Chongqing in two & a quarter hours, where we alighted onto a floating landing stage which lead to a funicular railway for pasesengers. The Yangtze scenery was very much as the day before: hills sculptured into steps to maximise the area usable for cultivation (and they get up to three crops a year off it), interspersed with industrial towns - ugly factories belching smoke, discoloured effluents, tips of coal, chutes & pipes down to the river; 'funicular' tracks. The housing, as everywhere, was flats, dull grey, further up the hillside; towns are compact in China. This was a pleasant interlude through attractive scenery during what was otherwise a hectic holiday. -- Peter Brown (Usually nb 'Pen Duicks' - for five days, 'Princess Jeannie')