Here’s to good food! The hotel where we had our lunch!
LUNCH!
Headed over to the Three Gorges Dam! Went through a gate and boarded the tour bus… first checkpoint was a building with the project model of the dam itself! The building was on top of a hill, so we can see the dam itself quite well! I sent a postcard home too, with my horrible handwriting… wonder how long it will take for them to receive it :P
This structure cost hundreds of millions ._.
A shop that sells local goodies… which aren’t very local after all
The ticket!
The 3 Gorges bus guide
The dam!
Power cables running everywhere
The model of the 3 gorges dam!
The scenery around the first checkpoint!
Interesting statues made from what they call the 3 gorges stone, which has beautiful layers – and a beautiful price tag at the back of it
Went over to the second checkpoint after that! It brings us even closer to the dam! I lost my ticket somewhere around here… grrr
Checkpoint 2’s scenery!
Went over to the third checkpoint, where we walked around a park in a great big circle! It ends off with a souvenir shop which is really getting on my nerves =.=
Checkpoint 3!
Souvenir shop… =.=
Headed to have dinner at another hotel, and the food isn’t as good as lunch!
Blehhhh, I still liked lunch better
We then headed over to the pier and waited for quite a long while before the boarding gates are open. Walked part many ships in the process and finally reach our ship, 金太阳，the Golden Sun!
Pier!
Over to the ship
Over to our rooms
Boarded the ship, went into our room… which smells like the animal room at the back of the immunology lab – and I found out exactly why is that so within a few minutes…
Rats. There’s an infestation of rats in the first floor rooms! Little wonder why they arranged the guys to fill up the first floor first… put down our stuff, and headed up to the deck! There’s no light there at all, so was quite harder for me to move around… x.x not much of view thanks to the darkness but the wind there is great!
And the room was seriously small too
Squeeze two beds and one TV in, together with one bathroom that I can’t even close the door without flattening myself against the wall thanks to the space!
The water that was there was brownish and with a fair bit of sediments – so much sediments that I ended up brushing my teeth with mineral water instead!
The room…
Went to bed at about 11.30, and woke up at 2 when Yee Tat came back… woke up again at 4 and saw a rather large grey critter on my thigh… shook it off and it darted out through a crack beneath the door… great, now I know how they are travelling x.x
Day 19! Was woken up again at 5.30 by the tour guide for breakfast, took a quick shower and headed up to the dining room! The tables seat 10 and cause of the ICT lecturers joining in, and I not wanting to sit with other people… I gave breakfast a miss haha
Sights from the deck in the morning!
Reminder to come back by 9.30
Going over to mainland is such a hassle, crossing so many ships in the process…
Went out of the ship and headed over to 白帝城！quite a beautiful place, and gives us a slight preview of our trip next week – long long flights of stairs…
Yep, that’s our destination
Scenery~
Stairs
Stairs
Even more stairs
Yet even more stairs
You get my point?
When we got back, we faced even more shops… again.
An entire line of workers who makes combs out of planks
This wood is called boxwood, and it’s supposed to be beneficial to health just by combing your hair with it!
We then spent ages on the deck while waiting for the ship to moved over to the next pier, so that we can take the next boat to Shen Nong Jia! Supposedly the place where the legendary forefather of TCM tasted many herbs to compile the first library of herbs! We transferred to the next ferry, and were off to our next destination!
People mahjong-ing on the deck!
Scenery on the deck!
There, we took the smaller boats that are rowed by the Tu Jia people, who at shallow waters, where it is hard to row, pull the entire boat across with ropes while singing to make the pain and hardship easier to live through!
The boat!
Went back the same way, and had dinner… played cards with the tour guides and charged up the deck when we were about the cross the dam! How we cross the dam is by what they call “climbing the stairs”. We entered the dam through a gate and reached an area that is completely enclosed. The water level is then decreased by 20 metres, the next gate opens, and we enter the next area, the gate we just passed closes, and we go down again. This cycle repeats 5 times over 2.5 hours and we are out of the dam! I then went down to bed…
Day 20! Was woken up again at 5.30, grabbed breakfast, packed and left the ship! It’s still raining pretty heavily though… boarded the bus and off we went! Made a stopover at a supermarket as we won’t be having lunch! Had 2 more stopovers (one of which is directly opposite the one we went to one day 18, and the entire building plan was reversed!) and we finally reach WUST!
Home sweet home xD
Unpacked, did up blog, and ordered mc-delivery - which failed…
Apparently, they don’t do delivery if the distance between the nearest restaurant and area of delivery is not within 7 minutes of travel! Yeps, so I starved for the night hahaha
P.S. I lost all the photos ever since I boarded the ferry to Shen Nong Jia, I have no idea why =/
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Indeed, the standards of China and Singapore are a far cry from each other. You won’t expect rat infestation on Singapore cruises! They will probably get sued, lose popularity, so on and on till the company closes down!
Which now brings us to think: what exactly makes Singapore’s standard of living so much better?
I had a rather long conversation with the tour guides and came up with one conclusion: we were “trained” to have high expectations. By the laws by our nation, it made Singapore so much cleaner than most other countries! No spitting, littering, chewing gum are just some examples of it! Smoking within school compounds or air conditioned areas is yet another point! Breathing in smoke from my dormitories and even within my quarters on the cruise!
Indeed, Singapore has imposed strict rules such that we can live in the country where they call clean and green, and perhaps we have been living too long under than umbrella that shield us from all the ugliness of the world outside of us. And in order to grow up, we have to see more, experience it, and accept it as this is the real world outside of that well we dwell.
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