April
19, Thursday
Leaving port this morning. Probably missed a good shore excursion this morning by the looks of this picture. DARN !
Famous peak in China. It is depicted on the 10 Yuan note.
You can see the peak on the left bank, just as you enter the Qutang Gorge
Guard towers along the way
Spectacular shots along the Qutang Gorge
Lots of commercial traffic on the Yangtze. Check out how deep in the water this barge is riding with its load of, what looks like, coal.
Lots of caves on this cliff face
Big river barge carrying transport trucks
Spectacular views
Lots of terraced fields.
Another coal production area. Looks like it is sorted by grade.
Colin/Simon and I on the deck of the ship
The second is the Wu Gorge which we enter early in the afternoon.This gorge extends for 40 kms from the western tip of Wushan County at the mouth of the Daning River to Badong County.The water here is only about 100 meters wide.
Qutang Gorge photos
Land slide here, and a huge one at that.
Retaining walls have been built in some sections to prevent the loss of agricultural lands
A cave in the mountains, taken with the zoom
Same shot, without the zoom ! How's that for perspective?
An ancient guard tower on the steep mountains
Another big cave, with a tiny guard tower below the opening. Taken with the zoom.
Same photo without the zoom. ABSOLUTELY mind boggling
You can really see the shift in geological levels here
And the tiny finger point, to the right of the three peaks, is called a princess and there is a legend attached to her. Can't remember how tall he said she was ! Sorry, didn't take notes while we were out on deck admiring the view.
A coal mining operation along the waterfront
Cruizing on the Yangtze ! Taken from the balcony of our room
Arriving at our docking area for our shore excursion
At approximately 3 pm we disembark for our scheduled 3 hour “Shennong Stream Boat Excursion”. We switch from the Cruise ship to a ferry, and from the ferry to sampans.
Beautiful bridge at ? I have no idea where we were !
Other ferries ready to take on more passengers for the “Shennong Stream Boat Excursion”.
Beautiful Horse statue
On the ferry, looking back at our cruise ship "President Prime"
Beautiful scenery along the Shennong River
That is one huge cave, and I almost missed it because it was behind me, completely invisible when looking forward.
Roadway or railway bridges being built
Local boat traffic
We arrive at a dock and disembark from the ferry to get into these smaller wooden boats.
The wooden boats are quite old and look very tipsy, but we are given life jackets so I feel a little bit safer.
This is a photo of a photo, so not so good, but I've got the original which is excellent. That is our entire group, all 16 of us, in one very small wooden boat !
and I'm sitting at the very back. There is one man rowing and one steering at the back of the boat. There are three other rowers at the front of the boat.
A hanging rope bridge along the river
Our local guide provides lots of information and even sings us a song.
Other groups returning from their excursion.
A waterfall coming from high up in the mountains
Many other boats coming in behind us
The Shennong River is 60 kms long and it pours into the Yangtze River at Wu Gorge. On one of the mountains we are shown a coffin, hanging in a crevice on one of the slopes. Our trip up the river is quite interesting and at one point two of the 4 rowers get off the boat and actually pull the boat up the stream the way it used to be done before the stream was flooded.
Pulling our boat upstream
During the wooden boat ride I can feel bites on my legs, but can’t see the little culprits. I wore sandals and capris today since we weren’t going to be walking anywhere; that may not have been a very good idea since no one else is mentioning that they are being bitten. I was sure I had taken a photo of the bottom of the boat because we could see water between the keel and the floor boards, but I can't find it, so it may not have turned out.
We return to the ship the same way we came.
Our boatmen heading home after a hard day's work. They are paid in cash and we saw them sharing the money among themselves.
Some are heading up the mountains to their villages. Others spend the week in the small huts we saw along the river and only go home when they are not working.
Not sure if it was the time of day, the lighting, or the angle, but some of these photos with the reflections in the water are just amazing (even if I do say so myself !)
A very obvious fault line in the mountain rock.
A couple fishing with nets on the river
Back to our ship
Second full day on the ship. We sailed during the night and I woke up
early and took a few pictures from the balcony.
After breakfast we get to visit the ship’s bridge, just for our Go Way
Travel group.
I am sure that this is
because Kit has worked on a number of cruise ships throughout her career and
has pulled some strings for us, since none of the other passengers get to do
this. We then go up to the Lounge where
Colin (or was jis name Simon?) gives us our own Ma Jong lesson. I was looking forward to this since what we
play on the computer is the “solitaire” version, and not the true Ma Jong game
where 4 players are required. It seemed
very intricate at first, and we were taught the “simple” version of the game,
but Simon/Colin (our guide on the ship, and cruise director) tells us that with the
basic rules we should be able to play any version of the game now. Well.... Maybe not ! Unless we get to practice a LOT more.
At 10 am we are still in port, waiting for the
passengers, who took the optional tour to the White Emperor Garden (probably the photo at the top) this
morning, to return to the ship and for the ship which anchored beside us to
leave, so we can leave. I’m therefore in
our stateroom for now, trying to fill in my travel journal and play catch up to
the entire China adventure. It is 10:50
by the time the ship next to us finally pulls away. That’s my sign to go upstairs to view the
first gorge as we pass through it. We
go through 2 of the 3 gorges today. The
first is the Qutang Gorge which we should go through this morning. This one is only about 8 kms in length, with
high cliffs and steep precipices. 
Leaving port this morning. Probably missed a good shore excursion this morning by the looks of this picture. DARN !
Famous peak in China. It is depicted on the 10 Yuan note.
You can see the peak on the left bank, just as you enter the Qutang Gorge
Guard towers along the way
Spectacular shots along the Qutang Gorge
Lots of commercial traffic on the Yangtze. Check out how deep in the water this barge is riding with its load of, what looks like, coal.
Lots of caves on this cliff face
Big river barge carrying transport trucks
Spectacular views
Lots of terraced fields.
Another coal production area. Looks like it is sorted by grade.
Colin/Simon and I on the deck of the ship
The second is the Wu Gorge which we enter early in the afternoon.This gorge extends for 40 kms from the western tip of Wushan County at the mouth of the Daning River to Badong County.The water here is only about 100 meters wide.
Qutang Gorge photos
Land slide here, and a huge one at that.
Retaining walls have been built in some sections to prevent the loss of agricultural lands
A cave in the mountains, taken with the zoom
Same shot, without the zoom ! How's that for perspective?
An ancient guard tower on the steep mountains
Another big cave, with a tiny guard tower below the opening. Taken with the zoom.
Same photo without the zoom. ABSOLUTELY mind boggling
You can really see the shift in geological levels here
And the tiny finger point, to the right of the three peaks, is called a princess and there is a legend attached to her. Can't remember how tall he said she was ! Sorry, didn't take notes while we were out on deck admiring the view.
A coal mining operation along the waterfront
Cruizing on the Yangtze ! Taken from the balcony of our room
Arriving at our docking area for our shore excursion
At approximately 3 pm we disembark for our scheduled 3 hour “Shennong Stream Boat Excursion”. We switch from the Cruise ship to a ferry, and from the ferry to sampans.
Beautiful bridge at ? I have no idea where we were !
Other ferries ready to take on more passengers for the “Shennong Stream Boat Excursion”.
Beautiful Horse statue
On the ferry, looking back at our cruise ship "President Prime"
Beautiful scenery along the Shennong River
That is one huge cave, and I almost missed it because it was behind me, completely invisible when looking forward.
Roadway or railway bridges being built
Local boat traffic
We arrive at a dock and disembark from the ferry to get into these smaller wooden boats.
The wooden boats are quite old and look very tipsy, but we are given life jackets so I feel a little bit safer.
This is a photo of a photo, so not so good, but I've got the original which is excellent. That is our entire group, all 16 of us, in one very small wooden boat !
and I'm sitting at the very back. There is one man rowing and one steering at the back of the boat. There are three other rowers at the front of the boat.
A hanging rope bridge along the river
Our local guide provides lots of information and even sings us a song.
Other groups returning from their excursion.
A waterfall coming from high up in the mountains
Many other boats coming in behind us
The Shennong River is 60 kms long and it pours into the Yangtze River at Wu Gorge. On one of the mountains we are shown a coffin, hanging in a crevice on one of the slopes. Our trip up the river is quite interesting and at one point two of the 4 rowers get off the boat and actually pull the boat up the stream the way it used to be done before the stream was flooded.
Pulling our boat upstream
During the wooden boat ride I can feel bites on my legs, but can’t see the little culprits. I wore sandals and capris today since we weren’t going to be walking anywhere; that may not have been a very good idea since no one else is mentioning that they are being bitten. I was sure I had taken a photo of the bottom of the boat because we could see water between the keel and the floor boards, but I can't find it, so it may not have turned out.
We return to the ship the same way we came.
Our boatmen heading home after a hard day's work. They are paid in cash and we saw them sharing the money among themselves.
Some are heading up the mountains to their villages. Others spend the week in the small huts we saw along the river and only go home when they are not working.
Not sure if it was the time of day, the lighting, or the angle, but some of these photos with the reflections in the water are just amazing (even if I do say so myself !)
A very obvious fault line in the mountain rock.
A couple fishing with nets on the river
Back to our ship
Dinner is special this evening since Kit has arranged to
have sparkling white wine and cake served at both our tables to honour the two
couples in our group who are celebrating their 50th wedding
anniversary this year: Joan &
Kinsey and Shirley & Jim. Congratulations to all four; that is quite an accomplishment !
No comments:
Post a Comment