Voyage of the Dam'ed

The journey to Chongqing, China's largest (and possibly ugliest) City, was a new experience. We had to take a public bus from Mount Emei, a rather concerning experience given what appear to be the rules of the road in China; I think we can sum this up as bigger is better, who give's a damn which side of the road you're on!

We weren't spending any real time in Chongqing, rather this was the embarkation spot for our three day journey down the Yangtze river to the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydro-electric power plant in the world. I won't go into the arguments for and against the dam as they are largely the same as any other major dam ever built, but to give some perspective the river will have risen over 100 meters in places, displacing over 1.2 million people and requiring the manual transportation of of sturgeon up river each year by lorry to prevent their extinction. There are also concerns as to the build quality of the dam and if the worst were to ever happen and the dam failed, water would reach Shanghai over 1300km away!

Oddly, despite the impact, we failed to meet a single descenting voice amongst those displaced, with each and every person we spoke to thinking it was a fabulous idea. Personally I felt this showed the remaining power of the communist state, but what do I know?

The boat we were traveling on had been mercifully upgraded from what used to be used for the tour we were booked on, although was still a far stretch from the QE2 I'm sure. As we were nearing the end of our travels, Siobhán and I decided to upgrade to one of two Presidential suites for the grand total of about £50 over the course of the three nights, bargain!

We were joined on the boat by two other groups, approximately 20 Chinese and 40+ Russian Americans. The Chinese we could not communicate with, other than to be treated to the usual number of requests for photo opportunities that they seemed to love having with westerners.

The same could not be said about the Russians. Before I continue, I should point out that we were on the boat for the duration of the US Presidential election and our little band of travelers were the best equipped for communication with the outside world, making the Russians keen to converse with us. This led to some slightly animated debates, as it transpired that the Russian Americans were to a man (and woman) raging John McCain supporters and honestly believed that Obama was both a communist and terrorist all rolled into one, contrasting rather starkly with our traveling companions, especially Roger and Lynn who had bother personally been out canvassing for the Democrats!

Anyway, what can I say about the journey itself, it was pretty wet. The overwhelming theme of the weather for the three days could at best be described as gloomy and grey. Add into this a new characteristic we had not previously discovered about the Chinese, being their love of punctuality as we were regularly repramanded for being late for meals or indeed missing them in their entirety. The crew however, got their own back every morning, as they would play incessantly dreadful music from 06:30 to ensure that everyone got up and it was impossible to have this music turned off in your cabin!

We drank heavily to help numb the pain, an act which led one evening to us being introduced to the "Murdering Miners" as Siobhán liked to call them. We were informed by our tour guide, that some of the Chinese on board were an infamous group of mine owners where fatalities were a regular occurance. I therefore spent one very late evening drinking the head "Murdering Miners" congac, whilst he himself set about destroying an entire bottle of very decent Remy Martin XO by pooring green tea into it . . . I honestly felt like crying!

The trip finished with a visit to the dam itself. We were now rounding the final corner in our global travels, as we prepared to head for Yangshou!