Friday, June 10, 2011

Cruising on the Yangtze River

I do not have the trip in exact order. Today I am going to show and tell a little about the Yangtze River Cruise. We were on the Century Sun, a nice ship for 5 days.  We loved it. Most days we stopped and got off the boat for little shore excursions. The Yangtze River has the Three Gorges Dam on it. A few years ago it was completed. They filled the river up and displaced over a million people and hundreds of towns were under water. It was fascinating to see what happened here. The towns were rebuilt above the water line using some of the old materials. The new towns are nice towns. The people we met were happy about the relocation's. They did say the older generations had a harder time with being relocated. 
 One of the nice things about this trip is the fact that we rarely had to touch our luggage. They got it from our rooms when we moved and it was returned to our rooms wherever we arrived. I thought this was a clever way to move luggage. We travel so much I think I want one of these poles to help get our luggage out to the car when we leave on trips. 
 We had private verandas with our cabins. The boat Jeff is checking out ahead of us is the Dragon Boat. 
 There were many many bridges along the river. 
 The entire time we were on the river the ever present mist or fog gave everything an interesting look. Kind of like the mystical magical mystery tour. 
 We did relax for a bit on the cruise. We are parked here next to another ship. It was fun to watch the crew working on it. 
 Magnolia tree
 Jeff, Reagan and Cameron (from the Red bus) at the Three Gorges Dam. 
 Dam!
 Any tourists looking at the dam? 
 On the walk back to the ship we stopped to buy some roasted peanuts. She used a hand scale to weigh them at the little market. The peanuts were yummy.

 We had an entertainer that traveled with us and did some great shows at night. He did Elvis impersonations, magic shows and comedy routines. We looked forward to seeing his nightly shows on the ship. Carey was very very talented. 



 Check out the steps we had to climb when we took a little excursion on shore to see one of the new relocation towns. Shan, Linda and I are planning to go to the Grand Canyon this fall so we took the opportunity to go up and down them a couple of times for training.
 Our home for 5 days. 

 Above is a hanging coffin. They have lots of ancient coffins in little caves above the river. If you expand the picture you can see it in one of the caves. 
 I was fascinated by the walk way built onto the wall of the river canyon. It is a 4 mile hike with covered areas, seats and glass bottom walkway. 
 One day we got off of the boat and onto little "San pans". We went up a little tributary to see another view of the river. They are little wooden boats that we were happy to have life jackets on in. They did not appear to be too seaworthy but did the job. The fellow above was our crew member. He entertained us and let everyone get up front for a picture in his hat and raincoat thing I guess. 


 Some real Yangtze women!
 Orange vested tourists. 
 Orange bottomed monkey. You may have to expand the pic to see it. 
 We fell in love with the peach Popsicle things we found along the way. 
 Pinch me, am I really in China cruising down the Yangtze River with the most handsome guy on the face of the earth? 

 Tour of the bridge. That is the term for a ships control center. We were disappointed to see the tiny little steering wheel. Where is the Popeye the Sailor Man wheel we expected to see? It was a just little 5 inch wheel. The captain is hanging onto it here. 
 We think the bartenders were feeling neglected by the mostly Mormon tourists on board. We made their day ordering sodas. 
Our ship below the long staircase. We had to do the stairs and cross the wooden dock to get to and from the ship. 

No comments: