Today is actually a continuation of yesterday in that it started just before midnight when we arrived at the Three Gorges Dam. As this was one tour though, and part of my “I hate China” day, I’m starting Dec 29th at around 10:00pm on Dec 28th.
Those of us who had paid to go and see the dam piled off the boat and took another funicular railway up the embankment. Once at the top we all piled into a heated bus – yes, heat! It was pure heaven! We wound down the roads towards the dock passing dump trucks and other large trucks on the way. We crossed a very long bridge – the Yangtze is probably about 2 km wide at this point – and finally got our first glimpse of the dam. While not overly tall (well, it is, but not compared to the bridge of my imagination) it is extremely long. Well, I guess it is about 2 km long LOL. On the other side of the bridge we first went past the locks before getting to the dam itself. The locks were huge; they had several long barges in one lock, and about 20 cruise ships in another. I’ve seen the locks in Ottawa and they are nothing compared to the size of these.
We finally arrived at the damn itself, which was conveniently all lit up, for everyone to take photos. The machinery sitting at the top of the dam gave some idea of scale. The thing is massive. I wonder how tall it will be once it is complete, which won’t be until 2008 I believe. After taking some photos we all got back in the bus to go to the visitors’ center. It wasn’t all that exciting, but did have the obligatory scale model. There was also an observation platform (outside and up a long set of stairs) that gave a good view of the locks. The whole area was very well landscaped. I actually noticed that coming up to the damn – the lawns are manicured, the shrubs shaped and there are winding lit pathways. The amount of money just put into landscaping this area is amazing.
After we saw the dam, then the real fun began – we went to an aquarium (in the dark of course). The aquarium had fish from the Yangtze swimming around in cramped cages. One of them was absolutely huge! It must have been a good meter and a half long. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good picture because the thing moved to fast and the lighting wasn’t good. There were lots of colourful carp though and other interesting fish. Fortunately (or unfortunately) they didn’t have any pink dolphins, except for the one in formaldehyde in the gift shop area. That was actually kind of sad, because it was just a baby dolphin.
After going through the aquarium we wandered up the path to the “Battle of the Three Kingdoms” show. Back a bit from the path was a huge stadium-like structure, and Cal and I were thinking, “Hey, this might be a live show!”. And upon getting closer, I thought I smelt horses. “Maybe there are live horses!” “Nah, there won’t be live horses”. “Wait, it sure smells like horses – maybe there are!”. And sure enough, there was a battle re-enactment with horses waiting at the top for our entertainment.
The whole thing was like the medieval dinner shows you can go to in Toronto (not that I have been to one, but like the commercials on TV). There were cheesy sound effects and fake cheering, and two battalions in all their battle finery charging each other. The funny thing was that they were actually hitting each other! The whole show was extremely cheesy, but that is what made it so fun. It was totally unexpected that at around 1 am we would be standing around watching people on horses charge each other with swords and jousts and smacking each other. You really had to admire the horsemanship as well, because to coordinate that without smacking a horse on the head, or seriously hurting your counterpart is rather skillful.
The next stop was to King Yu’s temple. It had some neat mannequins, some special kind of tree (couldn’t understand the translation), nice architecture, orange trees and large beams that had survived some major floods of the Yangtze. These didn’t seem all that special to me, but the tour guide made sure to point them out and the Chinese tourists were staring in awe (whether faked or real I don’t know).
So that was our entertainment while our boat passed through the locks. When we entered the temple, I asked our guide (the one I decided to double check with about everything) what we were doing. He said to look at the temple and then go sleep for an hour. I assumed there was a translation issue…. But I was wrong! He really did mean go and sleep for an hour! After viewing the temple, the bus disappeared and we were left with all kinds of vendors. We could have eaten and then slept, or just slept. I walked around for a bit and Cal went to find tea. I’m probably not supposed to tell you that he proceeded to spill the tea all over himself, but the attempts at the vendor to wipe up the tea were comical (the tea mostly fell in his lap). As I sat in a chair having pretty crappy tea, the shoe shine lady came by so I got my shoes shined. They were so muddy and dirty they really needed it! At 2 yuan (about US 25 cents) it was a bargain.
So all of that took about five minutes. Only one hour to go. But wait, it isn’t just an hour, it was two hours that we were supposed to wait around for our boat. To give you an idea the state I was in at that point, imagine spending three days outside without a heater. Kinda like when you go skiing, but there is no lodge to go into to warm up, and you have to stay outside for three whole days. Ok, now you get to sit down in the middle of the night without blankets or a heater and wait for two hours. This was not good. I was decidedly displeased at the one hour mark when I started to shiver uncontrollably. At the two hour mark, when our boat finally arrived, I was literally frozen, and sick. The dam was actually fun until this point.
Back on the boat I gathered all of my things together to be ready for the morning. Then I wrapped my scarf around my head and slept for a whole hour… and I was actually warm. For the first time in days I was actually warm, and then I got the cruel knock at my door telling me we were at Yichang and it was time to leave the boat.
There was no funicular at Yichang, so we had to walk up a long flight of stairs. This was not fun at 4am with a heavy backpack, on one hour of sleep and being frozen. Did I mention I have a hacking cough at this point? So we get on the bus for a four hour ride to Wuhan. This was the bus ride from hell. It would have been nice to sleep, but the seats were so close together on the side I was sitting on, I couldn’t get comfortable. I actually couldn’t even sit facing forward because my knees wouldn’t fit in the space. Cal’s side had about twice as much room as mine, but there was no more space on that side.
In addition to being cramped, this bus had no heat, so I got to freeze for another four hours. The bus driver was in love with his horn and honked incessantly, so I couldn't even get an uncomfortable sleep. Then people were smoking and hawking spit balls. I don’t mind the spitting, it is the loud wind up to them that is awful. I mean, is that really necessary??!! Shut the hell up. Oh, and to top it off we got to listen to loud Chinese pop videos on the TV screen. All of this combined with an extremely bumpy road, compounded by the fact that our driver chose to go down the middle of the highway rather than stay in one lane, made me extremely irritable and at that point I despised China.
We finally arrived in Wuhan and headed straight for the Holiday Inn (which had a gingerbread house in the lobby (above)), which was just across and down the road from the bus station where we were dropped off. This was significantly over my budget at 458 yuan (around US$60), but at that point, I really didn’t care. The first thing I did upon getting to my room was send out all of my still wet laundry (yes, it had been trying to dry for three days and was still wet). Then I jumped in the shower, and let me tell you, a hot shower has never felt so good! I then jumped in my soft bed, with fluffy duvet and pillow and put another blanket on top of that, and then turned up the heat in the room and just luxuriated. Ahhhh, heaven. The Holiday Inn kicks ass.
I should point out that turning on BBC was the first news I had heard about the big tsunami. It was pretty shocking seeing parts of Phuket, Thailand, where I was six months ago, devastated by the wave. It also put things into perspective. I was totally pissed about the whole Yangtze trip. After seeing the news, realizing that at least I was still alive, made things not so bad. I’m still not happy about the whole experience, but I really have no grounds to complain about a horrible holiday in light of what other people in the world have experienced this holiday season.
Anyway, after resting for a bit and getting warm again, we went downstairs and booked our train tickets to Changsha. It only cost like 15 yuan for them to book it, and seeing as it meant we wouldn’t have to go to the train station (money and time) it was worth it. Interestingly, despite the numerous trains that went thru Wuhan on the way to Changsha, they could only sell us tickets for ones that originated in Wuhan or Beijing. That didn’t leave many options. As I didn’t want to wake up at 6am again (I have done that for the last three days) we decided to get the afternoon train instead. It got me into Changsha a lot later than I wanted, but it was better than waking up early again.
Once we had gotten our tickets settled we made our way to Hubei’s provincial museum. (Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province). We grabbed a taxi, which eventually got us there (he had to ask for directions). I was worried for a bit that he was taking us around in circles. The museum showcases a tomb that was excavated that contained all kinds of artifacts including highly ornate bronze bells.
The bells are pretty amazing because they are a set (there are like a hundred of them) and each one has two tones. Even more amazing is the level of craftsmanship. Some of the bronze and iron pieces they excavated are incredibly intricate. This archeological find also confirmed that advanced bronze techniques were known much earlier than previously thought.
After walking through all the exhibits we went to the bronze bell show. A group of musicians played the bells and other instruments excavated from the site such as a 25-string zither and a giant xylophone like thing. It was basically a series of hanging slate plates that you hit as you would a xylophone. The music was pretty good. The bells really did have amazingly accurate tone. At first they played Chinese music, so it was kind of hard to tell if the instruments were good or not. As a finale they played Beethoven though, which was great because then I could really appreciate the instruments themselves.
After the concert we hailed the taxi with a death wish. It wove in and out of traffic, trying to hit pedestrians and cyclists. The Chinese really do drive like total maniacs. When I wasn’t covering my eyes for fear of seeing someone splattered across the windshield, I got to see some of Wuhan. It is a large, modern city. Interestingly, in addition to the standard laundry that hangs out of all windows in Asia, here they also had sausage, fish and ducks hanging from windows and balconies.
After arriving safely back at the hotel we made our way to Pizza Hut for dinner. Recuperation called for American food. The fare was pretty standard – same as everywhere except some of the toppings were different. What was interesting was the salad bar extravaganza. The Chinese apparently take their salad bars really seriously. The Pizza Hut salad bar is a one-trip deal, so you have to get as much as possible in one bowl. I just heaped as much as possible in mine, but the Chinese have a building system! The whole thing was fascinating to watch.
Basically, they build lettuce and/or cucumber around the bowl’s rim to extend the size of the bowl. Then they use dressing like glue to cement all the ingredients into place. The whole thing is done very meticulously – the salad leaves are chosen carefully and placed one-by-one into the proper place. The whole thing probably takes 20 minutes to build. Now, granted they could get a lot more salad in the bowl, but is all that work really worth it?
Stuffed and in a tummy happy place, we tried to hail a cab back to the hotel. This took a lot longer than expected. Basically Chinese people jump into a cab before the current passenger has even gotten out. That and the fact that we couldn’t seem to get a taxi to stop for us, made hailing a cab a bit frustrating. We eventually got one though and wandered back to heated luxury aka the Holiday Inn.
I got internet so I could download the latest Amazing Race episode, and surfed the net for a bit. Then I watched some English TV and went to bed. Despite still being sick, I was in a much better mood than I had been at the start of the day. From absolutely hating China early this morning, I’m now feeling much better about it. After a good (warm) night’s sleep, I’ll probably be in even better spirits tomorrow.
To see all my photos from this day, visit my photoblog!
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