Monthly Archives: February 2017

We docked just upriver from the Kuimen Gate. Baidicheng — the White Emperor City, famous since the Three Kingdoms period — was originally on a peninsula until the higher water level made it an island.

The third of the Three Gorges — and the most impressive — is the Qutang Gorge.      Yet more Tujia hanging coffins.       Looking back at the (redudantly named) Kuimen Gate… …a picture of which can be seen on … Continue reading →

A bridge across Yangtze.  The scales involved here are difficult to communicate.

We sailed through the second of the Three Gorges:  the Wu Gorge.    This mountaintop is known as the Goddess Peak.        

We set sail up the Yangtze.  I stood on my lonely balcony with the wind blowing and row after row of mountains receding into the distance, sailing into a real life shanshui painting.

Looking down at the locks along side of the Three Gorges Dam.  There are usually two “lanes” of locks, one for upstream and one for downstream.However, one lane was dry for regular maintenance. There are usually five locks, but when the … Continue reading →

  Sometimes the scale of things in China is astonishing.  Like the stuff of science fiction.  The Three Gorges Dam is one such example. 32 hydroelectric turbines, a series of five locks, plus an elevator which can lift a boat … Continue reading →

This cruise through the Three Gorges was the gift I gave myself for completing my ODW tour of duty.  I bought out one of the ship’s two spacious “Shangri-La Suites.” A bathtub on a ship?  Decadent!  (I didn’t use it.  Felt … Continue reading →

The winter cruise terminal felt like a location in a John Carpenter movie. The Victoria Anna holds around 300 guests, considerably smaller than the cruise ships I went on with my grandmother and the Youngs when I was a teenager.

The Cathedral of St. Francis is modest and tucked away, out of sight, but is one of the vestiges of Yichang‘s history as a treaty port.