I actually slept OK, it helped that the boat didn’t run at night, it docked around 21.30 and didn’t start until about 5 in the morning. Around 8 a.m. the boat stopped by a small town that was just around the bend from the first of the three gorges (G1). At 9 a.m. we turned the bend and went into G1. We were out on our deck again. I had a little chat with Christian, a large Danish guy with a long beard that some of the others had gotten to know the night before. When I talked to him I realised that I had actually missed speaking Norwegian. G1 is beautiful, the nature was definitely more interesting than the day before. But I must admit that I was thinking that the Norwegian fjords are both more beautiful and more dramatic. The most interesting part was the white boards in the mountain-sides telling how high the water would stand when the controversial Three Gorges Dam would be finished. There were often two signs, one showing what level the water would rise to when step 2 of the building process would be finished in 2003, and one showing were the water would stand when the dam was finished in 2009. It was incredible seeing the houses, villages and cities which will be lying under water (or rather be blown up, so that boats can go to shore without crashing in a roof) when the dam is finished. 

After G1 there was about an hours drive, before we started on G2. This second gorge was much more interesting than the first, with taller and more dramatic mountains/peaks. And again the signs showing the future water levels. A lot of places you can see that they are building new houses over that level. At one point we packed our things and jumped off the boat at one of the stops. To our horror there was a loooooooong stair up from the boat (those Chinese sure love their stairs), and the guide stressed us about having little time. When we had crawled up there we left our luggage in a big pile in the middle of the street, with a man who would take care of it, and the guide hysterically tried to hurry us into the waiting minibus. Kath had to calm him down. We speculated that maybe his job was in jeopardy, seeing that the last trip was so unsuccessful. 

Then we were off on another horrendous car ride up curvy and steep bad roads. At one point we had to cross the Yangtze in a ferry. The guide was so happy when he saw the ferry that he beamed like the sun and told us how lucky we were. And he arranged it so that we got to sneak in front of several other cars, so that we would get on the first ferry. As a Western tourist you obviously have certain privileges. Then we drove on. It was partly very steep down the side of the road. And of course the drivers don’t skip overtaking other cars for this reason. A couple of the people in the group were really scared. As we got higher up it was a beautiful and fertile landscape we were driving through, with rice fields in terraces, and a lot of corn. 
 

Our boat at the Shennong Stream

When we got to our destination about an hour later yet again we had to climb stairs, but this time down towards a clear stream. This was the Shennong Stream. A narrow slim wooden boat waited for us, with yellow seats giving room for three people in each row. We had Chang with us as well as a local guide for the Shennong Stream called Martin. Then we had three boatmen in the back and three in the front. These all came from a local minority people called tuji. It turned out to be a really nice trip. Shennong Stream is a narrow river winding its way through a beautiful landscape, it is a side stream to the Yangtze. Unlike the Yangtze the water was clear and clean.

The boat was riding without a sound between bamboo-covered mountain sides, you could hear birds singing and there were fish in the water. The water was shallow, so it took a lot of skill from the boatmen to get us safely through. A guy stood in the front of the boat and steered with what seemed like a large oar. The others had bamboo poles which they used both for gaining speed and for steering away from shallow water. At one point the water was so stagnant that they had to row. They rowed standing up in perfect quiet unison. They were all small and skinny, but consisted only of  sinews and muscles. Lillian (70) thought they had really nice bodies… (they wore small shorts or underpants, in the good old days it seems they used to do this naked). A few times we were whooshing along through some small runs. At one point we went to shore to walk a small stretch were the river was too dangerous. The trip was really enjoyable. It was supposed to take about 3 hours. Upstream on the other hand – when the boat crew were going back home – they would use about 7 hours. Because then they would have to pull the boat up the stream with hand power part of the way. We went by many of these boats on our way down the river. 3-4 men walked on the shore with a rope around their waists and pulled with their bodies. Many of them exchanged laughing comments with our boatmen as we passed by. On our way we got an extra passenger at two separate occasions, they jumped on the boat in motion and jumped off again further down the river. This beautiful river will also be flooded when the dam is finished. The famous little coffin lying high up in a tiny cave on a vertical mountainside will have to be moved to a museum.

As time went by it became obvious that we would have problems reaching our hydrofoil in time, although they had promised to wait for us for half an hour. This hydrofoil would take us to the city of Yichang where we would spend the night. Chang had loud conversations on his mobile phone, and as we were reaching Yangtze a ferry came towards us to bring us to the hydrofoil. We had to jump from our boat to the ferry mid stream. You could see money change hands, and off we went in the small black and white ferry in full speed through rather high waves till where the hydrofoil was waiting. When the hydrofoil could finally leave it was 70 minutes delayed. If I had been one of the other passengers at that hydrofoil I would have been pretty pissed off, but no lynching mob was awaiting us.

Then we were off through a grey and foggy landscape towards Yichang. We drove through G3 on the way, and we also passed a dam project (not the Three Gorges Dam), but even though I was looking out through the grey windows of the boat I was to tired to care. We arrived at Gzhouba Hotel a little before 8 p.m., another good hotel. Then we had been having a somewhat dramatic ride to the hotel. As the boat docked a group of taxi drivers had gathered at the peer, they turned out to be some real scammers. They refused to put on their taximeters, they wanted to have a fixed price. As this would be much more expensive for us, Kath and Chang refused. After some discussions we decided to move up to the main road and hail some taxis there instead. As we started moving a minibus arrived and the driver seemed willing to take us for a reasonable price. However, he was blocked by the taxi drivers. So we kept on walking towards the main road. Then the taxi drivers tried to block us to prevent us from walking further. Eventually they agreed to turn on the meters. Still, all the drivers we used tried some more on after we had started driving, refusing to turn on the meter after all, turning it off so fast that it was impossible to see, they all went to the wrong hotel first etc. After finally arriving at the hotel we just went to the rooms with our luggage and then went for a much longed for meal at a restaurant across the street. This turned out to be the first banquet meal where I didn’t really find anything I liked, but still after all the junk we had eaten it was just nice with some real food.