Learn Yu Wen Learn Chinese language and culture.

We took a cruise ship down the Three Gorges Canal and were able to take in the scenery from the deck. The shores were lined with trees and picturesque little villages. Sadly, these villages are probably no longer there as the water levels have risen significantly due to the Three Gorges Dam, which was under construction on our trip. The Gorges peak at hundreds of feet above water level; some are vertical cliffs and others are rolling mountains. At one point of the cruise, the canal got too narrow to continue, so we docked and took little wood rafts further down the river.

After the cruise we decided to continue down the river to Yichang in order to see the dam, which is the world's largest hydroelectric power station.  We wanted to keep haste and board a speedboat, as the slow ones can take ten times as long. Unsure of how to say “speedboat” we just smiled at the ticket clerk and said, “Yichang, wooooooo.” This is how two different Chinese guys described the boat to us in different towns, and it worked perfectly here. After a three-hour ride, we were in Yichang.

Upon arriving, we were swarmed by merchants trying to sell us tours of the dam. We spoke in Spanish until they got confused and left us alone. However, once we got into a taxi we found out that we were far away from the city of Yichang. We paid RMB 150 to a civilian to drive us into town. He stopped at the dam on the way, and we got out to take a look. It was huge, but hard to see clearly because of the clouds and mist that encumber the area.

At dinner, a girl who spoke English struck up a conversation with us and gave us her phone number. The next day we gave her a call and she hung out with us for the afternoon. She and her friend took us to get train tickets for Xi’an and then brought us to a supermarket to stock up on some snacks for the 17-hour trip. Every single clerk in the store seemed to want to help us out and give us suggestions on what to buy. After buying some goodies, we took the girls out for a cup of tea and then took off.