We woke to our fourth day in China as the Viking Emerald cruised up the Yangtze River. The third longest river in the world (after #1 the Nile and #2 the Amazon ), this river sources in Tibet and then extends 3915 miles across the whole country of China, heading east to finish near Shanghai.
We left the glitz and sophistication of the big cities behind us. Now we were getting a look at life on the river. Captains and crew live aboard most of the boats we saw, eking out a tough life.
I wondered about the ecological impact of the intense dredging. We passed countless dredgers and off loaders for days. The construction of high-rise apartment buildings in every city makes the demand for sand into concrete unending.
This unfortunately dark and dismal photo shows the best example of the preservation attempts to protect what could be saved after the dam caused huge areas of flooding. This embankment represents the height of the water during monsoon season.
We never saw a single recreational or personal water craft; no live aboard cruising tourists, like Steadfast is in the Bahamas or on the Inter-Coastal-Waterway in the USA. This river is a working thoroughfare, channeling goods back and forth across the country. No lolly gagging here!
The one exception: the River Tour Cruises, like the Viking Emerald.
The crew of the Emerald went all out to make our stay a memorable one.
This came compliments of our room stuart.
This came compliments of our room stuart.
Each stateroom had its own personal balcony, albeit a tiny one.
My sister and brother-in-law had the cabin next door to ours. We were able to keep tabs on each other and share photo ops along the way. hee hee.
It took a couple of days before we moved completely away from the cities and began to see rural scenery. The weather was rather dismal--we wondered if we'd ever see the "good stuff" thru the fog. In the meantime, we had fun and some silliness to keep us occupied aboard. Did I mention the fresh flowers in every public space onboard? This regal display of Birds Of Paradise and Stargazer Lilies was magnificent. It just kept getting better and better as time passed and more buds opened.
We learned how to play Majong, move thru some Tia Chi, write Chinese script, listened to some history of the river, and more. Of course there were the tea ceremonies...
After dinner offerings were the floor shows put on by crew members. The wait staff in the restaurant doubled as dancers extordinaire. The costumes were so colourful and intricate, representing ancient Chinese dress, mostly of the noble classes.
Check out these shoes: a precursor to high heels???
This is Li Ting Ting (Alice) who was our favourite waitress. Captain B and I wanted to adopt her and bring her home.
Views of rural China were more what I had expected to see when we had planned our trip.
It rained part of every day that we were on the river, and the fog was so dense at times, I wondered if we would be able to see anything. In fact, our excursion for day seven was cancelled as "Dungeon Thick'o fog" socked us in, bringing all river traffic to a complete halt for six hours. Today's excursion was also cancelled due to heavy rain, but Viking brought the fun to us. Viking sponsors three different schools along the rural areas of the river. They brought the children to us for a floor show and a chance to talk with them afterwards.
This link will let you hear the children singing and see some of what their schools are like.
https://youtu.be/KUBqVxoWkXk
Heather was impressed with the food presentation. She had surprises ahead, when we were offered fried chicken feet, pigs tails, and such!!!
Ambling back to our room at the end of a busy day, our heads full of new lessons in cultural exchange, we were greeted by another gift from Stephen, our attentive room stuart.
Stay tuned for accounts of Xian and the Terra Cotta Warriors, The Great Wall and the Forbidden City. What a trip! I am reliving the fun by sharing these posts with you a little at a time. Questions? Comments? Feel free to let me know if you are interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment