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We woke up before our alarm at 6 a.m. The boat started to move at 6:45, and we went out onto our balcony in our ship-supplied terry cloth robes to watch as the boat glided through limestone karst-lined gorges, past miniature lighthouses to keep ships at a safe distance. The air was pleasantly crisp and cool with a little breeze. It was very comfortable.
We went to breakfast at 7:30, in the dining room on the top deck. All of the foreign traveloers were assigned to the 6th floor dining room, while all of the Chinese travelers were assigned to the 2nd floor dining room. We had table assignments, and we really liked our tablemates immediately: Birgit and Stephan from Norway, and Korean-American couple Jang and Yung and their adult son Brian. Jang had lived in Massachusetts for a while, and Brian had studied in Oslo. And yet we all met in China. What a small world! Breakfast was a buffet, and we had chicken sausage, pre-made omelets, pancakes wirth maple syrup, muffins, green apple juice, coffee, and toast. After enjoying our buffet breakfast while getting to know our new friends, we all went to the English cruise orientation at 8:45. The cruise director, Dick Carpentier, was American. He was quite funny, and obviously adored his Chinese crew. He clearly is a good mentor for teaching the younger employees good hospitality skills. He did a safety briefing and intriduced the staff. He was quite entertaining. Afterwards, we wandered the decks to explore the ship, and went up to the observation deck. There were lots of Chinese tourists up there...men on one side of the boat and women on the other. Like a middle school dance. A man was playing a 3-stringed instrument while his freinds sang along and tapped their feet. When I photographed them, one gave me a big thumbs up. One woman on the other side of the deck was playing a maraca. It was a communal party atmosphere. On our deck (deck 5) women were playing mah jong for money at a table in the hallway, and men were playing cards in the game room. On our deck there was also a reading room with a very nice old-school map covering one of the walls. There were replica terra cotta warriors standing guard in the hallway, and some goregous fresh flower arrangements. There was an optional shore excursion this morning for an additional fee, but we decided not to participate. We would be going to the Three Gorges Dam this afternoon and through the locks tonight. Part of the point of this cruise was to relax and unwind a bit, so we didn't want to overschedule ourselves. Craig gets fatigued easily with his MS, and if he expends too much energy early in the day, he wouldn't be able to enjoy the much-anticipated dam excursion. Instead, we went to something much more low-key: a Chinese medicine lecture with the ship's doctor, Dr. Lee. He gave a lecture focusing on acupuncture / acupressure as well as touching on other treatments. This was to be his last voyage on the ship after 5 years of service, and he was offering free treatments for 10 passengers per day, first come first served. After the lecture we were the first to sign up. Since Craig's MS diagnosis, he has been very open-minded about treatments, and is willing to try anything that is offered to him. He had never tried acupuncture before, and was eager to give it a try. Dr. Lee saw us immediately. We sat in his small infirmary and discussed Craig's MS. He said that although the Chinese don't have this disease, and he certainly can't offer a cure, he can try to treat the symptoms. Craig respected his straight-forwardness and honesty, and agreed to try any treatment that Dr. Lee thought might help. After about 20 minutes of interview about Craig's current condition, Dr. Lee said that he thought that Craig's liver and kidneys were weak, so he did acupuncture mainly on Craig's liver and kidney lines (top of feet, inner calf, inner forearm, chest, etc.) He left Craig with the needles in for a while, then removed them and added a few more for shorter time. Craig could barely feel the needles, and they weren't uncomfortable at all until Dr. Lee tweaked the needles a bit, and it caused some brief minor pain. He then gave him some herbal pills and gave him instruction to take them before every meal. He said to book a follow up appointment tomorrow; he wants to know how Craig feels follwing the acupuncture. He likes challenges and learning about conditions that are unknown to him. When we got back to our cabin, the front desk called to say that we had a phone call. A phone call? For us? We hope everything is ok and that there isn't some sort of emergency back home. We went down to the lobby and took the call. It was Wang Jun! It was so nice to hear his voice! He was checking up on how the trip was going so far. He had read the evaluation form that we had filled out about Mary. In it, we had praised her subject matter expertise, but we had explained the difficulties we had had procuring water. Wang Jun was very upset when he read this, because, like most people in the tourism industry, he realized what a basic need this is, and that it is so easy to fulfill. He had spoken to Mary and she said that she was very shocked that we had made any complaints since we had given her a nice tip. We are a group of only two people, and we know that taking such a small group means that guides have less tips coming in from that particular trip. So we always try to be fair in our tipping. Mary taught us an incredible amount about Xi'an. She knew her facts. And we are appreciative of that, especially as someone who takes notes and synthesizes them into wordy blog posts! But we also felt we had to be honest about the water situation, to prevent something like that from happening to other travelers. After we explained all of this to Wang Jun, we moved on to happier subjects. He told us that his whole family were looking forward to our arrival in Guiyang in 2 weeks. We were just as excited. It would be a great way to wrap up our trip! After saying goodbye to Wang Jun, we went up to the dining room and enjoyed a lunch buffet with our tablemates. All of the meals were a mixture of Western and Chinese food. At first we were a bit disappointed that there was Western fare at all, but Dick Carpentier explained to Birgit that for a lot of the Chinese clientele, it is their first chance to try Western food. The cruise becomes kind of a cultural exchange. In that vein, we had spaghetti and sauce, sweet and sour pork, spicy chicken, potato salad, chicken wraps, soda, banana pudding, cookies, petit fours, and carrot cake. We enjoyed chatting with our new friends at our table and also a woman from Newcastle named Myra who had also gotten a complimentary treatment from Dr. Lee. We found out that Birgit and Stephan are our next door neghbors, having also upgraded to the junior suite. She had priced out all otions and said that the deal they gave us was much lower than the rack rate. Having booked our entire trip as a package, we hadn't really known the price differential. We were happy to hear that our gut instinct to upgrade for a seemingly reasonable price was accurate! After lunch, we walked around the ship a bit more, and then met on Deck 2 for our excursion to the Three Gorges Dam. We were split into small groups, and ours included Birgit and Stephan, as well as a group of Singaporean tourists who were very friendly. Our local guide Michael came onto the ship to collect us. We got off of the boat, walked through a gauntlet of hawkers, and got onto a bus for a short ride to the Three Gorges Project visitor's center. We crossed the aesthetically pleasing Xiling Yangtze suspension bridge, which is 1.1 km long and 187.5 m high. It was constructed between 1993 and 1996. It is orange for visibility to passing ships. When we arrived at the visitor's center, we got off of the bus and went through securty screening. At the same time, the bus itself was inspected. We got back onto the bus and stopped at a building which housed a scale model of the dam complete with flowing water. It was very cool and gave us a sense of the overall scope of the project. A Chinese woman had her little boy pose with me for a picture and he looked terrified. I bought a book about the dam for 100 yuan and they threw in a book of postcards for free. The idea of the dam was first proposed by Sun Yat-sen in 1919. John Louis Savage of the Hoover Dam came in the 1940's to help to realize the project, but WWII halted progress. In the 1950's, 30,000 people were killed in a single flood season. Not only would a dam be capable of generating power, it would also save lives by lessening flood impact, and just generally evening out the seasonal fluctuations of the river. (Before the dam, when water was low, men would physically pull boats along rocky areas of the river to prtovide passage). The Gezhouba Dam was constructed in Yi Chang in the 1970's, and its success gave the Chinese the confidence to embark on the massive Three Gorges Dam project. Xiling Gorge was chosen as the site of the project because it is the widest of the three gorges. The exact location was selected because of the stability provided by granite bedrock there, and also the presence of an island to aid in construction (the island is now submerged). The dam was built between 1993 and 2008. It took 28 million cubic meters of concrete to build the project - the largest concrete dam in the world. There were 40,000 workers involved the project in 1993 (a whole boom city sprung up to support them and their families), and 2000 workers still remain. We went to Jar Hill Mountain for a nice view of the dam. We took four consecutive escalators to get to the top. There was a great view of the dam on one side (it is low water season, so there was no overflow of water spraying as you sometimes see in footage of the dam), and a pair of 5-stage ship locks on the other. One set of locks is for passenger boats, and the other is for cargo ships. The locks took 9 years to construct. Unlike the Panama Canal, it does not cost anything to utilize the locks. The government of China owns the project and wants to facilitate trade along the Yangtze. It was all so huge! The sheer scale of it was difficult to imagine, even with it sitting right there in front of you. We were given some free time to wander and take photos. The area was very nicely landscaped with trees, shrubs, and flowers. There were also fountains which were currently under maintenance. Our group reconvened to walk down to the viewing area for the ship elevator. A sweet 76-year old in the Singaporean group noticed Craig's limp and asked, "Sir, are you ok?" It was very sweet of him. Craig was actually doing ok, but his leg was a little stiff. The only part that of the dam project which is still under construction is the ship elevator, with an estimated completion date of 2018. The idea of the ship elevator is to ease traffic in the locks. Ships which are small and light enough could use the elevator, freeing up the locks for larger ships. The small ships would enter a container full of water, and the elevator would lift the container. The original deesign for the elevator employed cables to lift the container, but the cables proved not to be strong enough. So in 2005, they changed their approach, so that the elevator would be completely gear-driven. Now that's agility! After a thoroughly enjoyable visit to the dam project, we got back onto the bus at 4 o'clock. We returned to the dock at around 4:30. After our recent water procurement issues in Xi'an, the first thing on Craig's mind before re-boarding the boat was water. The boat provides 2 complimentary small bottles per day. Additional small bottles can be bought onboard for 8 yuan apiece. In the hawker stalls at the dock, we purchased two large bottles for 10 yuan apiece, a much better deal. When we got back to our cabin, we took nice hot showers to freshen up. We then headed to the captain's welcome reception in the lounge at 6:15. We sat at the bar with Birgit and Stephan. Stephan is a bar manager in Oslo and they enjoy bonding with people over bar culture. We sipped tasty sparkling white wine while Captain Li, who has 43 years of experience despite his youthful appearance, welcomed the passengers. On his way out of the lounge, the captain passed by us. I caught his eye and he greeted me. After the initial rush of Chinese passengers had subsided, I went up to the appetizer table and bruoght back some snacks for the four of us: sushi, little kebabs, and sweet and sour meatballs. As we chatted, we passed under the picturesque Xiling Yangtze Suspension Bridge at twilight. I ran outside to get some photos. We then headed to dinner together. Once again, there was a nice buffet which served a variety of Western and Chinese fare: chicken curry, tofu with chilies, beef with peppers, pasta, pasta salad, Victoria chocolate mousse cake, and petit fours. At 8:15, we went to the lounge to prepare for the evening's entertainment, a fashion show where crew members dressed up in a variety of costumes representing the various ethnicities of China. Birgit and Stephan bought us mai tais, and we sat at a table near a door out to the deck. Birgit noticed that we were parked in front of two large doors waiting to enter the first of the five locks. We headed out on deck with all of the other passengers to watch. It was so amazing! As we watched, the doors opened ("like the gates of Mordor," as Stephan would later say). It took about 2.5 minutes to silently open. Then we passed through the doors into the lock and stopped right before the second set of doors. We went back inside as the fashion show was starting at 8:45, but we continued to be distracted by what was going on outside. I had to change my camera battery and realized with horror that batteries that I thought were charged were actually dead. I had charged one yesterday and it appeared to be dead afterwards. I thought I had just gotten them confused. But now it dawned on me that my charger must be malfunctioning. I ran to the room to check my battery supply and realized I only had one fully charged battery and a partial left. All the batteries I had tried to recharge while in China were totally dead. I had not brought the cable to charge the camera directly; I never do. I started to freak out. We had the backup camera which ran on the ubiquitous AA battery, but it is really bad in low light. I returned to the lounge and rejoined our table. Looking out the door we could tell that the ship was rising, and quickly! I went out on deck and could see the depth markers on the lock walls, and I looked down below us at the 95 meter marker. We couldn't feel the ship rising at all; it was only when watching in relation to the lock walls that you could visually tell that it was happening. We watched the rest of the light-hearted fashion show. I told Birgit about my battery problem. She is a journalist with lots of photo equipment and she thought she had a cable that I could use. That appeased me a bit and I decided to keep shooting with my last battery, as the lock experience was once in a lifetime and I knew my other camera wouldn't capture it at all. After the fashion show completed, we all went up to deck 6 and watched the whole process as we passed through the next three locks. We could touch the slimy sides of the lock, we were so close to them. It was so cool! There was a barge in the locks with us as well, which explained why we stayed so close to the edge. We were fascinated. We bought a round of drinks for the four of us (Craig got a Chongqing beer this time). We sat and chatted and realized that we have so much in common and really enjoyed one another's company. People walked onto the bow of the ship, where signage said passengers were not supposed to go due to high voltage. We warned them against it, but they insisted on doing it. They were at least very cautious about not touching anything. In the U.S., the access gates to this area would be locked due to liability. But here all people had to do was to open the small gate and walk right through. As the locks filled with water, the weights on the sides made a very eerie ghostly wail. Bats were circling, eating insects in the ship's spotlights. And a red moon was visible overhead. The evening was a magical blend of nature and engineering.  Video of the Victoria Jenna going through the ship locks at night, with eerie, ghostly, mechanical noises We entered the last lock at around 11 o'clock. Birgit and Stephan decided to go back to their room. We went to our room as well, thinking that we should probably get some rest before tomorrow morning's excursion. But once we got to the room, all we could see from our balcony was the concrete wall of the lock a foot in front of us. The whole experience was so exciting...and this was the last lock before reaching the open river. There was no way we could go to sleep. So we grabbed our jackets and went to the observation deck to see the process through to completion. There were now very few passengers on deck. The final lock was not as high as the others. As the gates opened, more people went onto the high voltage area on the bow to get a better view. An older woman grabbed a wire and walked under it, and then held onto a pole for support. I was afraid she would be electrocuted, and quite honestly I didn't want to see it, so we went down to deck 5 to watch from there. We went through the final gates and there was the open Yangtze River in front of us! We were done with the whole process at midnight. What an adventure! And the passenger locks had actually been closed up until 2 weeks ago, so our timing was impeccable. We wouldn't have wanted to miss this!! When we got back to the room, I tried Birgit's cable in my camera. Unfortunately, it was the cable for downloading pictures, not for charging. The wi-fi shuts off at 11 p.m. (seems odd, since we paid for the access, but whatever...), so I was unable to send e-mail. But I drafted a message to Wang Jun to send in the morning to see if there was any way we could track down a charger when we got off of the cruise in Chongqing. We went to bed at 1 a.m. after a busy and satisfying day. |
 We wake up as the Victoria Jenna sets sail on the Yangtze River  Dawn on the Victoria Jenna (Photo courtesy of Birgit Kolboe)  Chinese passengers provide musical entertainment on the observation deck  Driving past the ship locks on our bus ride to the Three Gorges Dam Two ships pass through the lock simultaneously with little room to spare!  Steph on Jar Hill Mountain, overlooking the Three Gorges Dam  Two five-stage ship locks viewed from Jar Hill Mountain  Ship elevator, currently under construction  Getting back onto the boat after the Three Gorges Dam excursion  Cruise director Dick Carpentier, Captain Li Long Hai, and river guide Steven Xu at the Captain's Welcome Reception  Passing through the ship locks  Crew fashion show  Reaching out to touch the wall of the lock - not much clearance on this side!  Stephan and Craig prepare to enter the next lock  Low red moon over the ship locks  Passing through the final ship lock into the open Yangtze 
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