The Gorges

As we started through the first gorge, it was very hazy and misty. In some cases, this made some beautiful pictures, although some were difficult because of the lack of light.

After being transferred to the smaller boats, we continued into the Little Three Gorges.

One of the main differences I noticed was the water was now very green instead of brown. All in all, it was a very exciting day. Later, we were transferred to even smaller boats that were used to pole down the river.

We couldn't help but think about our young couples at home canoeing down the Illinois River. They would sure get a kick out of this!!

We continued down the river and at the end even took an additional trip to see the
Three Gorges Dam project. (More pics on a later blog).

Everything went well until we went to bed on Thursday night. My food lay like a rock in my stomach all night. (We found out later I had gotten food poisoning). The next morning we had to catch a train back home (24 hours ride). I managed to make it to the train before I began vomiting and diarrhea. At least we had bunks to lay on. On top of everything else, there was a seven-year-old boy above Jim who continually threw items (such as full bottles of water) at us and continually yelled out and threw fits. (We found out his grandfather was taking him to find out what was wrong) but it sure didn't help me feel better.
The train ride home was a nightmare that I won't soon forget. We finally made it home about 12:30 Saturday afternoon and I was sicker. I was supposed to teach on Sunday, but was so sick I couldn't. Finally on Monday morning Jim called the waiban and they had him take me to the hospital. Some of the things I can laugh about now, but they weren't very funny then. I'll tell the tale on my next blog.
Enough now to say I am back on the road to recovery and doing much better.

More Holiday News

We began our journey down the Yangtze from Chongqing. The boat pulled out at 8:30 pm so there wasn't much to see except the lights of other vessels and towns, etc. along the shore. We decided to go up to the top deck and sit a spell. It was quite nice (except for the never-ending cigarette smoke from the men). I managed to stay up wind from it for a while, then had to go inside. (This is a sister ship that looks a lot like ours - we passed in the mist).
I think I took about 250 pics so it is hard to decide which ones to put on the blog.

This is one of some mountain farming along the river. I can't imagine trying to farm on these steep mountainslopes!
One of the first sites we stopped at was the Fengdu Temple.
I have never climbed so many stairs at one time in my life!! After we finally got to the top of the mountain on the right, I told my hubby "Look! all the Chinese people rode the cable car up". Smart huh? Well we rode it back down. Of course we were objects of much staring - many folks had not seen Americans before and we smiled and said "Ni Hao" as our cable car passed theirs.
We were too exhausted to climb back up to the top of the center and left mountain. I did get a pic of the map though.




This is an example of some of the steps from the boat to get to shore to climb up again to see the temples, etc. I believe I counted 320 steps on this one.

Of course, each time we docked to visit another site, there were all sorts of little stands and shops selling anything from jade, to silk, to chicken feet, to noodles, and dumplings.

One morning Jim and I decided to go up on deck early and were able to get a very good view (little did we know that this was the morning we would pass through the gorges).

We were in for some exciting views and activities. After going through the main gorge, there were more side trips (which we had elected not to take). On this day we were transferred to smaller boats to take the trip through the Little Three Gorges.

I will post more pics on the next blog.