After spending a couple of days in Shanghai,
we flew to Wuhan to board the river cruise.
As you can imagine,
cruising the Yangtze was not always beautiful.
There is a lot of industry along the river,
as well as small cities and towns.
We did get into the mountains and began to see some
gorgeous areas along the river.
This is a large hotel going up the side of the mountain.
The pagoda style buildings were always fun to see,
since we don't have these at home.
There are many areas along the river that seemed to be accessible
only by boat. Therefore, we saw some very different looking boats.
The Yangtze River
One of our tours was to the Three Gorges Dam...
the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.
It was built between 1994 and 2012 and
displaced 1.3 million people.
There is a lock system here for ships and boats to go through
in order to navigate the river.
Upstream from the dam,
what had once been a little creek became
a large tributary to the Yangtze.
We took a Sampan boat ride through some of this
area and it was just beautiful.
During the rainy season,
more water is released through the dam
and the water level rises to the tree line
in the photo above.
Many villages and towns were flooded in this area
when the dam was completed.
This was such a peaceful ride.
Can you imagine going up all of these stairs to each the pagoda
at the top?
The view must have been spectacular.
And, of course, we were able to see pandas!!
We visited the Chongqing Zoo and saw a number of Pandas.
These guys above are about 2 years old.
This guy was adorable!
Each panda eats about 40 pounds of fresh bamboo a day!
If you want a panda,
China will rent a pair for $1 million a year.
Plus you have to provide the bamboo!
Any baby born to a rented pair of pandas
is sent back to China after the age of 2.
I'll leave you with this cutie and continue the story in a day or so.
Happy Day!
6 comments:
thanks for sharing - it is so nice seeing all of these photos - I would love to go one day but dear hubby has a thing about overseas travel - I can barely get him on a short flight
What a fabulous trip! I grew up on a TVA lake so I am very familiar (and still fascinated) with locks. Though they provide much-needed water reserve and flood control, its sad how many people get displaced in the process.
Pandas are just so cute! Love seeing your river pictures, what an experience you have had.
Thanks for sharing I remember reading a children’s book to my kids about th Yangtze River. I’m going have to go amazon to find it or it’s going to bug me all day. Enjoyed your pics
Aww.....looks at those cute pandas. I cannot imagine walking up all those stairs to reach the pagoda at the top. Thank you for sharing all your gorgeous photos, Ramona. It sounds as if you and your daughter had the best trip.
lol. I’ll have to consider renting a pair of those pandas. That Sampan excursion sounds like fun. It would be quite a sight to see the water up to the trees.
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