2005- Cruising the Yantgze!

Another must in China is a Yangtze River cruise....we took 3 days on the East Queen cruise chip from Chongqing and loved every minute of it! The crew always made sure we had an English-speaking guide and, of course, the authentic Chinese food buffets were excellent, right Robert?
We went through the large 3 Gorges, the Qu, Qulang and Jiuling, and were awed by their beauty. The dam downstream is fast backing up the Yangtze so there are no more sandbanks, rapids and trackers (to guide the boats around the shoals) and by 2009 the 170 meter water rise will be complete. We took a side-trips: through Fengde, or Ghost City, where the souls of the dead are remembered in sanctuaries and monasteries with a multitude of statues and altars. Also, we went up the Danling River into the smaller 3 gorges and saw the old tracker routes, villages displaced upward into the mountains and even monkeys! The 3 Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, was incredibly overpowering.....the picture above shows us at a sunrise tour. Amazing sights!