Mar 27, 2005 - Day 264 in Yangzee River, China

Sarah writes: The entire point of taking a cruise down the Yangzee river nowadays is that soon the landscape will look entirely different. The population of China requires alternative sources of energy just to maintain their domestic energy needs for the next ten years. Thus, they are building a dam on the river which in 2009 will raise the water level significantly and flood many towns and villages. Many rural Chinese have been relocated in preparation for this event. There has been a rush to see something called the ¡°three gorges¡± before they are changed significantly due to the dam. With anticipation of being one of the final viewers of the three gorges, (though there are 3 more years to see if for those that are interested) our boat docked and we were dispersed onto many smaller boats. The boat we were on had a squawking Chinese tour guide who we recognized as the voice of Charlie Brown¡¯s school teacher. The first stop was a nearly 200 step hill to a Buddhist temple where Charles took many photos of local cuisine (such as baby birds). The second stop separated the group again onto an even smaller wooden boat. With our orange life-jackets on, we motored down a very narrow beautiful gorge. Ahhh, this is what the fuss was all about! The water was a jade Chinese green color and the calm was such a great contrast to the high walls of the gorge. Strange mountain people were singing folk music in the gorge because the acoustics made the sound of their voice hauntingly beautiful. Charles got the Chinese people on the boat cheering when he made the peace sign (who knows why) and he cracked them up pretending to read a brochure in Chinese while he was holding it upside down. Just when we thought we could communicate so little, he showed us that we could communicate so much.