Three Gorges & a Pagoda

April 15-17. 2018

As boring as the first two days on the Yangtze River had been, Sunday we woke up to fabulously beautiful scenery. 

Our only stop on this day was at the Three Gorges Dam. In addition to information previously published (maybe you need to go back and reread the previous post?) it took 17 years to build the dam and, amazingly, traffic on the river was shut down for only 40 days. There are 4 locks at the dam that took us 3 hours to navigate and raised the boat a total of 135 meters.  That is approximately 400 feet. The dam has 32 turbines that generate 1.8 billion kilowatts of electricity a year. It is 2.3 kilometers, about 1.2 miles, across the top of the dam. Needless to say it was an impressive thing to see.

Three Gorges Damn

We spent about 2 hours touring the dam before returning to our boat and continuing our cruise.  As previously mentioned, there was a lot of commercial traffic on the Yangtze River before we entered the first lock on Friday. Partly that was because the first lock was so small many commercial boats would not have fit in the lock. Our boat only had about a foot of clearance on each side when we were in the lock and we determined that we were raised about 75 feet.  We have been in many locks, from the Soo Locks to the locks on the Danube River, but have never experienced anything like going through this first lock. The boat passed through the 4 locks at the dam while we were at dinner so we did not pay much attention.  The other reason there was less commercial traffic above the dam was fewer towns, meaning less manufacturing. The scenery after the dams was incredible rugged with very little sign of life.

Monday morning we docked at a little village, no name that we know of, in the middle of nowhere.  We left our boat, walking down the pier several hundred yards where we boarded Sampans for an hour and half cruise on a tributary of the Yangtze called the Goddess Stream.  At points on this Sampan cruise the stream could not have been more then 50 feet wide with the mountain rising straight up from the stream.  All of the fellow passengers we talked with were, like us, in awe of what we had seen.  Monday, as we cruised further up river, the topography on each side of the river became less rugged and we saw more villages and other signs of life along the river.

The Goddess Stream by sampan

Tuesday morning we awoke to find the boat already dock at Shibaozhai, China.  Our tour today was a walking tour to the Shibaozhai Temple and Pagoda.  We enjoyed(?) a 30 minute walk through the town that led to a bridge that connected to the island where the Temple and Pagoda were located. The bridge is known as the “drunken bridge” because the bridge deck is supported by cables so that it moves up and down as you walk across it. Needless to say, a person’s balance is a bit disoriented as you traverse the bridge.  

The "drunken bridge"

The Pagoda was moved to this island in the 1950’s after a flood damaged the first level. The island now has a retaining wall around it to protect the Pagoda. At over 160 feet in height, the Pagoda is the tallest wood constructed Pagoda in China.  Amazingly no nails were used in its construction.  It is 12 stories tall but we only went to the 9^th story. 

The Shibaozhai Pagoda

At the different levels of the Pagoda there were various signs and statues that we could touch. For example, there was a statue of a woman holding a baby. Should a woman touch this statue once she would have one baby, twice, two babies. Another example would be touch a sign representing “good luck” in order to have good luck.  

Inside the Shibaozhai Pagoda

Exiting the 9^th story, a walk led to the Temple where there were three shrines, two with male statues and one a female statue. These were all Taoist shrines and, while our guide explained what we were seeing, it was a bit confusing and we don’t remember everything said. There were other statues in each shrine that represented such things as good luck, wealth, etc.  Luckily there were lots of market stalls on the way to the Pagoda that Lynda enjoyed.

Taoist shrine in the Shibaozhai Temple

We disembark our boat tomorrow morning in Chongquing where we take a bus to the airport to fly to Lhasa, Tibet.  We will report from Lhasa in three days.

Sunset on the Three Gorges