The Cruise on "The Queen"

I check in and chill before dinner. At dinner, I meet the people, I will be spending most of my time with for the next 4 days. They are Kelvin and Sally from England, Laura and her Dad Alex from Scotland, Sr. y Snra from Texas/Mexico who have been married for 47 years I might add. Barbara and Chris also from England and married for 37 years.and me.

We set off on our 3 gorge cruise excited and anticipating the views.

Life along the Yangtze looks hard as most of the houses are wayyyy up the hillside and mind you already the water has risen over 100 feet.

The gorges are absolutely breathtaking, I imagine it is was it is like in the Fjords of Norway.

We stop at hillside towns and take the tram out of the gorge and visit a local kindergarten to see some kids that are now displaced by the dam project. They sing us songs. I thought is was a bit cheesy and could not understand the significance of the visit. I am surprised though that the Chinese government allows such blatant protest to the dam project. We also stopped and visited the home of a couple who were farmers and were displaced. This project is displacing many families as they must now live high enough to be above the new water line. The question is asked “which do you prefer the country or now living in the city”. The husband said “if I were a young man and had many years of farming, I would prefer the country”. They were actually moved with there entire village, so at least they are still in the community of people that they know.

We stop at a local market and walk around. There were all kinds of smells and sights to see. I was not as surprised to see slaughtered hog all over the place, but I can tell some in my group were. Y'all know me, I am from the South and my middle name is "Jimmy Dean".

The third day of the cruise we were tenured out by ferry down to this area where we were to get on these sampon boats and cruise further down the river and back. I was the last to get down there because I had decided if these were the boats I was going to be on, it was not for me. These rickety little wooden boats. I had no doubt in the ability of the drivers as they have been doing this for generations and at some point they usually get butt naked and wade through the water to turn the boat around. I watch my group get on and then of course when they saw me, I was not sure if it were the usual shock and horror of my blackness and size or that PLUS OH MY GOD SHE IS GETTING ON MY BOAT!!! When I see Laura get on and a board on the boat creaked, I thought to myself, if it creaks with her, my foot will go through the damn thing. So I shopped, haggled and shopped and then went back to the ferry and sat this one out. This is our last night together and we spend a very long time at dinner talking and enjoying each others company.

Our last morning together is her royal highness’ birthday!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!! To my surprise Laura got me this Chinese design silk purse and they used a copy of the Yangtze cruise map to express their birthday wishes. How sweet! We celebrate more at lunch at the airport before we boarded our flights to Shanghai. I am going to miss them alot.