Rice is Nice

Our cabin on the President 4 was pretty nice, and "Ryan" and "Sophia," our cruise directors were definitely enthusiastic. If either had gone to school in the US, they would have been president of their fraternity/sorority. Or, UVa people would recognize in them the bright-eyed eagerness that is sought in U-Guides.

We didn't pay for this picture with the skipper

We sat at the same table, with the same people, as assigned, for every meal. There were two American women who were about 60, who had great travel attitudes and senses of humor. There was pony-tailed guy, of about 60, and a person who I think was his dad. They came to the first dinner, didn't say anything, and we never saw them again until we disembarked. There was a young couple from the Ukraine. The girl spoke good English, but they did not seem as if they wanted to talk to anybody. And there was a French couple, of about 50. They wanted to talk, but they didn't speak much English. Fortunately, Candy, one of the aforementioned American women, and I both speak some French. I had to try to defend Sarkozy l'Americain in my broken French. I think I came across as a right-wing nutjob.

Most of the passengers were Chinese or German. The Germans and I sat on the sundeck a lot drinking beers and watching the scenery go by. The Chinese did I-don't-know-what until the cruise director got on the loudspeaker to announce that we were approaching some famous rock or another. Then the Chinese passengers would all run onto the sundeck and take a lot of pictures. Once we'd passed the landmark, they would descend again to the lower decks.

Old and new Chinese religion at Fengdu

Electric blue walls are in vogue in the necropolis of Fengdu

The scenery along the Yangtze, or Changjiang ("Long River") is intermittently boring and spectacular. It was foggy the whole way. We went to a temple complex on a hillside that is supposed to be some sort of gate to the Chinese underworld. And we cruised through the Three Gorges, which are impressive despite their diminished height above the rising waterline. This included a jaunt to the Little Three Gorges on a tributary. At one point, our sampans had to be pulled by men with ropes. And you realize that the only reason to go that far up the creek is to see people pull your boat, doing extremely hard labor. It made me feel somewhat guilty, but really, the fact that tourists will pay for this is what brings money to the people who live along the creek.

One of the gorges, but not as high as it used to be before the dam

Going up Shennong Stream

He deserves to retire

We went through the locks of the Three Gorges Dam at night. I only stayed up for the first lock, as the whole process takes about 3.5 hours. And the next day, we had a tour of the dam, or of two sites far from the damn with distant views of it, with an incredibly negative tour guide. The people peddling things at the beginning of that trip had a uniqe pitch. They descend upon you with picture books and postcards (standard), but these ones say "later, you come back, later, later!" I am not sure if they know what that means, or if they've just heard so many tourists say "Later, come back."

Slowly passing through the behemoth locks at Three Gorges

The cruise was pleasant enough, I guess, and it was a good way to recharge by napping, sitting on the balcony or sundeck and watching the scenery go by, and reading, in advance of being in the metropolis that is Shanghai.