For breakfast Alison and I went to the bakery around the corner and bought something which we ate in our room (OK, but terribly sweet). That morning we went in a minibus with a local guide named Jerry (which was actually the only attractive Chinese guy I saw on the whole trip) to the Three Gorges Dam. The journey only took a half hour. First we went someplace by the site to see a model of the dam, and then we saw the dam itself. They had made a look-out place on a hill in the middle of the building site. It was enormous. On the one side we could see this huge thing which will bring boats up or down the river in 5 steps. On the other side there is an elevator which will bring most of the passenger boats up, this is much faster and will only take about half an hour. Beyond the elevator is the dam itself, it is still a passage there where the boats can sail through. It was very interesting to see. According to Jerry about 30000 workers are working on the dam project. They either live in the city or in temporary housing on the site. 1 million Chinese will have to be relocated because of the flooding the dam will cause. They will all receive 30.000 Yuan per person, of which 18.000 will be in cash. The rest they will receive in other ways, as earlier experiences have shown that poor people who suddenly get a lot of money in their hands will use everything at once, and the result will be social problems (sounds a bit patronizing, but it might be true for all I know). I am not quite certain what to think of this dam project, I think I will have to look into the matter at bit more when I get home. Listening to Jerry it all sounds just peachy, no political controversy there. But he did say that a lot of people were reluctant to move, that the area hides a lot of archaeological treasures that they won’t have time to recover, and some endangered animal species (for example a Chinese sturgeon that can get to be 4 meters long) are threathened. 

The trip lasted only 2-3 hours, and then we had to go back to the hotel to pack, and walk around the corner to shop at the supermarket, the baker and the fruit store for the next train ride. This time the taxi ride went well, we came to the train station without any trouble. Since we were travelling on soft sleeper on this trip, we could wait for departure in the soft sleeper waiting room (unlocked especially for us). We started the train ride to Liuzhou early afternoon, the trip would take 21 hours! Of course it was warm and dirty, and the hours went by slowly. I read The Quiet American by Graham Green which I had lent from John after finishing all the books I had brought with me, I wrote in the travel diary, talked to the others etc. Again I shared a compartment with Kath and two Chinese. One of them was an old guy with large bags under his eyes who looked like he could drop dead at any moment. The other was a young girl in a frilly dress and high heeled shoes, travelling with an affectionate boyfriend. I had read and heard about smoking in trains, that the Chinese would chain-smoke inside the tiny compartments. This turned out not to be a problem on any of our train journeys. It is now only allowed to smoke out in the hallways by the entrances, and this rule seems to be respected most of the time. But some Chinese seem to think that a train journey is a good opportunity to study a Westerner up close, and they are certainly not shy about staring. So sometimes you feel like something under a microscope.

We were all sick of lollies, instant noodles and crackers, so this time I took my chances on the restaurant car along with a few of the others. We ordered by the pointing method (no menus, so pointing at what the people at other tables were eating), and the food was not too bad. At least none of us got sick.