The Yanghtze River

We have been travelling on the Yanghtze for three days, and today we finally sail into our final port and fly off to Shanghai for the end of our tour. The last few days have been great. Yesterday we sailed down a tributary on a large boat then took a smaller boat down a small gorge and were serenaded by the local boat people as we watched the scenery go by. Then we went off down the river and through the 3 gorges that are so famous. The first is the most spectacular, the second is most beautiful, the third is most dangerous because of the narrow passageways and threat of landslides. We made it through them all (whew!) and then went through 5 locks to get down 113 feet to the other side of the damn and down the rest of the river. This morning we toured the damn that is being built and will raise the water level 60 meters in the next three years, wiping out many homes and villages. It's pretty crazy to think about all that we see being underwater from October til the end of time...??? The damn spans a mile and is 185 feet high, and will in the end take 17 years to build. It was really foggy so we didn't see it in all its magnificence, but it's still a pretty impressive feat. The boat is about to cruise on down to the next stop and from there we rush to board a plane and get on with the tour. For now I am going to try and cram everything back into by bag before the porter comes to haul it away...