Hello friends
Let’s start with my best wishes for the New Year to all of you!!!
That almost all wishes and dreams come true!
But some shouldn’t, unless you are able to create new ones immediately. Or what would life be without any dreams left?
And for those who still read my reports, I’ll continue, where I ended last time: Chongqing and the Yangtze 3-gorges-cruise.
I raised the question, how a ‹Luxury Ferry› would look like in my last report. I now know the answer. It’s an old, rusty pot. But it seemed to be quite safe and I was in for an adventure anyway, so I didn’t care to much. What I did care was with whom I’ll have to share my ‹First class cabin›. I did not meet ‹my mate› untill late the first evening on board. This was some hours after boarding and check-in. The cruise started in the night. I was already in bed, reading a bit, when finally the door was opened and a friendly chinese man came in. Not introducing himself he just ‹boarded› his bed. He didn’t speak any english, so he decided no to commumicate at all, even after some shy attempts from my side. But he was always smiling. He didn’t bring any luggage, which seemed a little strange to me. Half an hour later someone knocked on the door: a friend of him. He let him in and they talked a while. Before leaving the cabin the other guy handed a cigarette to my cabin buddy. All alarms went off inside me. I started to communicate again, asking him, please, not to smoke in the cabin. He surprisingly (or maybe I was really clear about that? 🙂 ) understood very fast and with a smile put the cigarette away. No problem at all! The remaining nights my cabin mate did not show up again. But whenever we met somewhere on the ferry he smiled very friendly at me. Later I found out, that he shared the cabin with his friend from then on, where he anyway had stored his luggage.
The cruise itself was very nice. I only realized on the second day, that I was doing it 10 years to late, because of the construction of the big dam, which nears it’s finalization. So the three famous gorges were already filled with water and not half as spectacular as they used to be. The water level, after completion, will be 175m higher than before the dam construction was started. 156m were reached already. Neverthenless the trip was beautiful.
The second day started with an excursion to the ‹ghost city› Fengdu. I never figured, why it is called so. And a temple could be visited as well (Zhang Fei). Both sides were nothing special, but I’ve seen so many nice places before, I’m probably spoiled.
The third day we passed the first of the three gorges (Qutang). Still impressive. High walls on both sides. As it was foggy that day, I didn’t take to many photos. As a side effect, with the much higher water level, some new spectacular gorges emerged, where there were some narrow valleys before. So on the same day we had a tour in smaller boats into these ‹3 little gorges›. This was a great little tour indeed.
Next day started with crossing the second gorge (Wu Xia) and the third one (Xiling) before leaving the ferry for a tour to the construction site of the big dam. What a project. Crazy. Huge. What an impact on nature and culture. Lot’s of environmental problems are connected to this dam and nobody so far knows, how to solve them. Sometimes I think certain projects are realized, only because they are feasible, and not because they are really needed. Personal interests are often driving such projects.
I then spent another night on the ferry and checked out at 6:00 in the morning in Yichang, where I bought a train ticket to Shanghai for the same day. I arrived there very relaxed at 14:00 next day after a nice 24 hour ride in my hard sleeper bed.
Shanghai is, after the construction of the Yangtze dam, another good example of constuction/destruction. All over China I observed immense development. Skyscrapers are appearing like mushrooms everywhere. No city, that has not a skyline like New York nowadays. While the quality of the work seems to be questionable often, the quantity is really impressive! And Shanghai is topping all I’ve seen so far. Entire quarters are demolated for new buildings. Only famous ’smaller› buildings, like the Peace Hotel are renovated (and so it was closed). The rest is teared down and huge blocks and skyscrapers are built everywhere. ‹The Bund› in Shanghai, the famous avenue along the riverside, is a construction area as well, because some tunneling is done to give the traffic more room. Maybe this results in a nicer pedestrian area as well. But at the moment it’s just a mess.
So I was impressed by the way Shanghai is developing, but not to much by the city itself. To many people. To many street sellers bothering you: «copy watches, DVD, bags (Luis Vuitton)» every 20 meters and they were very insisting. I didn’t lose my temper, but I got harsher than I liked sometimes.
From Shanghai a short train ride brought me to Hangzhou, a city known for it’s lake and parks around it. And indeed, it is a very nice place. The hostel was away from any road set up in a quite traditional house in a garden environment. I only spent one day in Hangzhou, as there were no train tickets available to Hong Kong for the following days. Together with Janet and Anne, two dutch students doing studies in Macau, I hired bikes and we explored the parks. And in a fancy restaurant with an ‹all-you-can-eat buffet› we filled our stomaches in the evening.
As I had to leave the next morning, I didn’t see as much, as I’d liked to. Back to Shanghai and further to Hong Kong, another couple of days were to spend in trains.
Now, for Hong Kong and for Macau I’ll write a seperate report.
So for this time there is only one place left to introduce: Yangshuo. Since yesterday I’m at this famous, touristy but very nice place. Absolutely beautiful sceneries, i.e. Yulongriver.
Yesterday the weather was chilly and wet, but as I’m writing this the sun seems to get trough slowly. So it’s time to go for a walk and explore the rock formations a bit.
I plan to spend the rest of the year here and so I’ll have some more days to do some tours on the river and visit the surroundings by bike.
Ok, the Hong Kong and Macau report will follow soon. Probably still this year 🙂 .
cu, Thomas