Ganja on the Yangtse

On Saturday 12th October, we sadly left Wudang Shan, but looking forward to our upcoming 2 day / 3 night ferry down the Yangtse. We took a brief detour on the way down to see the Purple Heaven Palace, a beautiful Buddhist temple complex, nestled into the forested hillside. It was a good time to see it, coinciding as it did with morning ceremonies and the atmosphere was a heady mix of burning incense, chanting, tinkling of cymbals and the solemn faces of the saffron and burgundy robed monks.

The Purple Heaven Palace on the lower slopes of Wudang Shan

Preparing for the morning mantras at the Purple Heaven Palace

Before getting onto the boat, we had pretty much 2 full days on the road. The first took us through more mountain scenery, eventually descending into fertile agricultural land, with rice paddies cascading down the hillsides. We stopped at a service station for what is becoming our ritual lunchtime stop. We typically get a buffet lunch, with rice and a variety of meat and vegetable dishes, though I use the term meat loosely, because very often it is mostly bone and gristle, swimming in a cocktail of oil and chillies! As we head south and west, the food is getting more and more spicy and we have to watch carefully for the lethal little peppercorns which leave the mouth fizzy and numb: chewing a couple of these would render a trip to the dentist entirely pain free!

In the late afternoon, we arrived in the city of Yichang and our first glimpse of the Yangtse. It is a city of some 4 million people, described as 'drab and hum-drum' by the Lonely Planet. Fortunately, as often, they are off the mark and it turns out to be a good place to spend the night, with a nice promenade along the river, a spectacular new suspension bridge and a lively centre with lots of restaurants, bars and shops. We also have a comfortable, clean, modern hotel for the night which always helps. We mainly spent our time, stocking up with provisions at a large new supermarket. To our delight they stocked things that we hadn't seen since arriving in China, including bread, cheese and coffee.

The next day we had a longer drive then expected, due east to Wanzhou to pick up the ferry. Because of the mountainous terrain, the motorway heads north-east before curving back south east to re-join the river. The main interest, is some of the feats of engineering: long tunnels through the rock and one modern bridge after another, either crossing gorges, or a river. The Chinese must, surely be the great bridge builders of our times.

We eventually arrived and boarded our ferry at after 8pm, for a 9pm sailing and we are in for a pretty tough few days. The boat is a hell hole, rammed with noisy Chinese tourists and us, probably the lowest class ferry still in service on the Yangtse! We shared a cabin with Michelle and Geoff, which was just about big enough for 2 pairs of bunk beds and a filthy squat toilet / shower which reeks - and it would take great courage to use either. We cleaned it the best we could, but to no great effect.

Later that night we noticed a pungent, sweet smell coming from a gap in the wall to next door's cabin (and as we had the end cabin, concluded that it could only be the staff quarters). We quickly realised that this was marijuana. We were not sure whether to be more worried by the state of the boat, or the fact that at least some of the crew were stoned, but at least it overpowered the smell from the toilet and we drifted off into the sweetest of dreams!

In the morning, the boat passed through Qutang, the first of the famous Three Gorges, but the 2 small observation decks are crammed full, each with a Chinese tour guide bellowing into a megaphone and we crouched below deck by a tiny port hole (or should that be pot hole?!) and saw a little of the towering cliff tops slide by the rubbish strewn Yangtse.

In the afternoon, the boat docked for 4 hours and, with most of the rest of our group, we decided to go on a side excursion on a smaller boat up a tributary of The Yangtse, which runs through very similar terrain. The views from the boat were indeed spectacular, with cliff tops towering sharply hundreds of metres above us, punctuated by small farming communities and the occasional stop for tourists. Unfortunately, there was a huge BUT. The smaller boat was just as crammed and came with a Chinese guide who shouted into a microphone incessantly, pausing for breath just once for 5 minutes in each direction. This was relayed on loudspeakers throughout the boat at ear-drum shattering volume and there was no escape from the din. The Chinese loved it and shouted and chered and laughed and took pictures of one another. Poor Sue put her ipod on full volume to try and muffle the noise a little and curled up in a corner to try and insulate herself from it, but the whole experience was quite traumatic for her.

Bizarrely, half way through the trip we stopped at a jetty and were transferred to a series of flat-bottomed gondolas and were punted along into a small cove, whilst a guide dressed up as a mythological creature sung folk songs to us. This sounds like it might be quite enchanting, but even he, on a boat with about 20 people in a serenely quiet spot, needed a microphone to pump up the volume. Just when we thought it couldn't get any stranger, a few more costumes were found and every Chinese person on the boat had to dress up and have their photo taken in return for a few yuan to the guide.

On the second day, the boat docked early in the morning at a peaceful little village. On one side of the pontoon, however was docked a flotilla of gaudily painted dragon boats. Our boat largely emptied in a few minutes and poured onto a series of these to head off on a 2 hour backwater tour. We had learnt our lesson from the previous day's experience and opted out. Instead we wandered into the village, which was quite charming, with lovely views down onto the Yangtse and the mountains beyond. We found a small restaurant and, though they understood no English, managed to get ourselves a tasty breakfast with noodle soup steamed vegetables and baked sweet-potato. This was, at least a small reprieve from the bedlam of the ferry.

In the afternoon, we docked again and were herded off on a series of buses to see the controversial Yangtse Dam. The whole tourist experience is clearly intended to sell the concept of the dam. We are fed a series of statistics about it's huge scale (the largest dam in the world, that will produce vast quantities of clean hydro-electric power etc) and I can't help thinking: 'there are lies, dam lies and statistics'!

We were not allowed onto the dam itself, but instead got taken to a series of arm's-length vista spots. The last was probably the nicest, viewing the dam from below from a newly created park featuring carp-filled ponds, lush vegetation and sculptures crafted from waste materials from the dam construction. We were assigned an English speaking guide, but her English was barely intelligible and she just wanted to bark out a series of statistics into a microphone at us. We managed to detach ourselves from the group, but felt a little sorry for her: our group was like trying to herd cats, compared to the orderly Chinese groups, who dutifully followed their flag-waving guide.

We came away from the tour really none the wiser on whether the dam should be applauded or decried. The sensible conclusion would seem to be that when the dam finally starts to produce its electricity (in 2014) the costs in terms of uprooting communities and other damage, will probably lead to a significant environmental positive.

Back to the boat and we had just one more night to get through, which was basically a non-stop downstream sail back to our starting point. A lot of people had got off, so we passed a quieter evening in the restaurant. All things are relative though and we were jointed at one point by some high-spirited Chinese guys who were on a holiday. We did a number of 'Gambeis' (formal toasts) with them, as they were determined that we tried their home-brewed, 12 year old rice wine. This was surprisingly smooth and we had a fun half-hour with them, though neither of us had any idea what the other was saying, much as our guide struggled to translate!

We arrived back to a rainy Wanzhou early the next morning, all pretty much bedraggled and worn-out by the experience. Time will tell whether we will look back on this as an unforgettable and privileged close-up experience of Chinese culture, but for the moment, it just feels like we sailed for 2 days, 3 nights through paradise spoiled.

Here are some pictures to give you a flavour