Sailing up the Yangtze River

This morning we will sail through the eastern point of the Xiling Gorge, the largest of three gorges, before its most dangerous rock were moved in the 1950's this was the most perilous part of the journey.

The trip was very interesting as there were already signs that people were being moved out of there houses in readiness for the water to start building up because of the new dams which is to be built a little further up river.
After lunch we all get off the boat and take a short coach trip to visit the new Three Gorges Dam project, the largest project of its kind in the world. It is us due to be completed in 2009 and the dam will be 1983 metres long and 185 metres high and should contain enough water to help with China future needs.

We were given a interesting talk on the construction of the dam and also the many challenges that they have faced including the moving of thousands of people to new locations and of course many of the older folk do not want to move.
After the introduction we could walk fairly close to the construction site which was truly massive and you would wondered where they would have started from
After the tour of the site we headed back to boat for a glass of something before a very nice Chinese meal and by which time many of the tour group were beginning to get a little fed up with all the Chinese food although Jennifer and I were in heaven.