Here out floating hotel is in the first lock of the Three Gorges Dam, the gate closing behind us. Click to see a large image.
It took three hours to pass through the four locks that are currently operating. When water levels rise higher, the top, 5th lock, will also be in use. Click to see a larger image.
This is the largest dam in the world, and it seems that, along with moving cities above the new water level and other projects, it cost at least double the official cost of $50-60 BILLION. Here, our floating hotel is approaching the Three Gorges Dam locks. We got into the lock with five other ships, for the three-hour process of dropping, level-by-level, below the dam. Each lock took us about 20 meters down.
We waved to our neighbours, as our huge boat squeezed into a space I did not think it could possibly fit in. Click to see a large image.
Sometimes, there was a foot of space, sometimes a couple of inches. I think the captain has been through here before. Click to see a larger image.
On the top (fifth) floor our our boat, I could touch the wall of the lock. ... Click to see a larger image.
In the dam lock, here the first gate slowly closes behind us, then we drop 20 meters, as it is getting dark, and half an hour later, the front gate opens to let us all into the next lock. At this point, still to be repeated three times before we cleared the dam, we had the luxury of going to a nice dinner and watching the walls go up past our restaurant windows.
Next morning, we went to see the dam. There was very tight security, like in an airport. This view is from our bus, crossing over the upstream locks. It's a two-way system, one set of 5 locks going down, this set, going up ... Click to see a large image.
Another shot from the bus taking us to the top of the dam. Power lines fan out in many directions from the dam, feeding China with electricity ... Click for a large image.
We brought binoculars to have a good look, but in the permanent mist, we could not see much of the colossal dam. There were several photo shops that offered to take a photo of you, and in Photoshop, paste your image in front of a crystal-clear view of the dam they took some time ago. You could then take that home and show it to your friends ... Click to see a larger image.
Here's what we saw, the dam in the mist. The entrance into the dam just this side of the blue floats will be a "ship elevator", but the technology hasn't worked yet, so maybe by 2010 a new, German contractor, will install it ... Click to see a large image.
And so, since we could not see it all in the hazy mist, Barbara took a photo of the photo, at the lookout point, of what it looks like on a (rare) clear day". Click for a large image.
Here, through the mist, you can see the double lock system. The locks just below me are heading one-way down, and we passed through them the night before. Those further away, also one-way, are going up, ships with green tops soon to be going upriver. Panama Canal and the Suez Canal charge fees for ships, but amazingly, the locks through the Three Gorges Dam are FREE, courtesy of the Chinese government. This is how some of the stuff in your local Wall-Mart reaches you (the ships going down to Shanghai and the sea) and how raw materials go up, to be made into the toasters that will soon be going downstream when completed ... Click to see a larger image.
The last part of our trip on the Yangtze, another view from our hotel suite, down the Xiling Xia, the third of the three gorges, this one still looks as ever, it was not flooded, because it is below the new dam. Click to see a large image.
A bridge crosses one of the steep side gorges. One last nice lunch in our floating hotel's top floor restaurant, as our suitcases were taken to the exit. By 1:15, our new guide in Yichang picked them up and we were on our way somewhere else, see photos of Wuhan ... Click for a large image.
Click here to see photos from Seoul and Daegu and Gyeongju, South Korea, Beijing, The Great Wall, X'ian, Chongqing, the Fengdu Ghost City, Yangtze River, the "Lesser Three Gorges", Wuhan, Shanghai, Suzhou, or go back to Barbara's narrative of the trip.
