China 2007

Our second day on the river, and many of us had signed up for an optional tour of the White Emporer City, which, as always, involved a climb. We docked before 8 o' clock in the middle of the second gorge,very like a fjord, and took a small, old ferry around a bend to the base of a huge series of steps. Covered chairs with taxi numbers waited, attended by two men each, who would carry the occupant up and down five hundred steps for twenty bucks. All but one of our group walked it.

Our local guide gave us some "free time" to explore the first temple, but people wandered fast and we had soon walked through the entire complex before our guide caught up. So we went through again, this time with explanation. Honestly - it was too early for all of us. There wasn't all that much to see, and not much of a story behind it all. The most fascinating part was that the ancient city was now an island - once attached to the mainland by an isthmus, on which a factory once lay. The water had risen by hundreds of feet since the construction of the two "flood control" projects downstream. At least they could predict how far the water would rise (don't ask me how) and they could relocate factories, farms, and residents.

Mrs. James attended a tea demonstration between the first excursion and the second. They had tea for everything - constipation, bad eyesight, you name it. I slept through lunch and then packed for the Shennong Stream excursion.

They call it a shore excursion, but we never touched bonafide land. Instead we took a speedy ferry for almost an hour, and then piled in rowboats by the dozens. Six local farmers powered each boat, two of them designated "captains". The first captain steered while the second, at the front of the boat, prodded the bottom of the stream. We enjoyed the almost-silent ride, passing waterfalls and caves, working our way slowly upstream. When the depth became visible - just a few meters - the boatmen got out and pulled the boat with a towrope and special harnesses. It was an unnecessary exertion on their behalf, but it was interesting to observe ancient custom nonetheless. We stopped when the current and rapids became too much, and they anchored the boat somehow to give us shiny stream rocks. The tickets we got showed the back of naked boatmen tugging away, and Mrs. James couldn't stop talking about it. But our stream guide, a young woman, told us that the nude practice had been discontinued for twenty years now. Their clothes had been rough and painful when wet, but apparently the technology of clothes had improved.

On the return trip our boat shot down the stream, until it hit the slower, deeper water closer to the Yangtze. To amuse us, our river guide sung some minority folk songs to us. There was some discussion, and then the boatmen chimed in. It was the most cultural experience, and for many of us, our favorite experience, of the whole cruise.

Back on ship, I decided to prepare for the talent show that evening. When I signed up at the front desk, as only the second person with the deadline in just minutes, I was afraid that I would be in the spotlight. But when the show finally rolled around, many Chinese and Western alike participated. I had only practiced my song, with Gina, for a few hours that afternoon. When we got up there and sang "Hey There Delilah" (Plain White Ts) we forgot a few of the words and the harmony sounded pretty bad at times, but it was still a successful a capella performance. A few other kids from our group performed, and then a lot of the Chinese group "performed" karoake pieces in Mandarin. All the while, an old, fat, ugly, drunk man who we later found to own the cruise company smoked cigarettes and shouted obscenities at performers. While one American girl was singing a humorous ballad, he shouted "Funny!" sarcastically in his drunken stupor. He hissed at another member of our group and made a ruckus during my song. When he followed us to the airport after disembarking the next day, Mrs. James nicknamed him "Chairman Mao".

People tried to control him that night, but nobody could do much because of his power. Our river guide, Linda - essentially the cruise director - apologized profusely to people when Mao was not around, but said she couldn't do anything. It was his birthday, the poor guy.

Very late that night we approached a series of tall columns rising hundreds of feet out of the water. Our ship, The President III, had slowed to a snail's pace. We saw doors open to our left, and six ships left the highest upstream ship lock under coast guard escort. It took us nearly an hour to position ourselves in the back-right of the first lock, just inches from the wall and moving slower than the casual walker. The metal doors took a minute to close, and then we started to sink. Water trickled in, but poured out an invisible drain at a tremendous rate. The water level had dropped twenty meter in just minutes, but it took the better part of an hour to communicate and navigate between locks. The process repeated five times.
After the first lock, I retreated to the mahjong room (aka "Captain's Pub") to eat a 'banana boat' with pears instead of bananas, and play Mahjong with two of the crew members (James and Lucy) and Gina, who kept playing the game all wrong. Eventually, Willie replaced James. Lucy and Willie, who kept babbling in Chinese, insisted I play one more game, then one more, then another. When I finally came out to the back deck before dinner, I encountered many of the young folks on the ship drunk, lounging in chairs and watching the final lock close. The final lock had walls much shorter than the rest, so it almost felt like we were sailing again, rather than being ants subject to the whim of a giant machine.

We finally hit the real river around 2 in the morning, and when I returned to my room, my roommate who usually stays up all night was asleep - a first.