September 7 - China: Overland to Yichang
We woke up at 8:30 when the train stopped at a station. The ride wasn't bad, but I kept waking up whenever the train stopped - which it did often. At some point in the night, the train switched directions so while Jon and I were in the "non-breeze" side of the cabin leaving last night, we woke up in the wind which was much cooler. For breakfast, we had our apple crumbles and bananas.
For the next few hours, we goofed around, played card games, and did some time on Darren and Michelle's crossword puzzles. Around 1:00, the train arrived in Yichang. All in all, this didn't seem like a 20+ hour train ride.
Ken and Mel in the cabin of the train
Gezhouba Hotel
We hopped on a bus to the Gezhouba Hotel in Yichang. The lobby of the hotel was very nice, and had Kenny G playing over the speakers. Unfortunately, the song we recognized was "Little Drummer Boy" and Grant told us that the only CD they have is Kenny G's Christmas Album. So funny! We settled into our rooms, showered, and felt human again. Then we met the gang downstairs for lunch and went to a teeny restaurant across the street. The food was delicious.
The Three Gorges Dam
At 3:00, we met Jerry - our local guide - to go to the Three Gorges Dam. This is a huge project here in China and is something that the government is happy to show off to tourists, government officials, and visiting dignitaries. When it is done, it will be the largest dam in the world. It will be interesting to see the difference it makes to their economy.
Jerry has a plethora of facts and figures about the dam, and walked us around a model describing where the locks will be, where the temporary dams are to be built in the meantime, and where we will be riding on our boat trip in 2 days. He also told us how the government is/will be relocating the 2 million people whose homes will be flooded when the dam is complete in 2009. It sounds like the government has thought of almost everything and is very proud of the success of the project. But you have to wonder how many of these facts were fed to Jerry as the "party line". In fact, we almost keeled over when he said the project is "on time and under budget". Yeah, right. That would make it the ONLY construction project IN HISTORY to be on time and under budget.
Jon and Darren had a great time incorporating the word 'dam' into most of their conversation, starting with asking Jerry if they could take any 'dam pictures'. They asked questions about the 'dam locks', the 'dam completion', the 'dam relocation', the 'dam size', and the 'dam power output'; so many dam questions!
Yichang
At 6:00, we were back in the hotel. Jon and I walked around the main street of the town to look at the shops and to find a bakery. There isn't much to see here, and Lonely Planet describes it as "a useful jumping off point for more interesting places". We wanted to get to a bakery for breakfast tomorrow morning and some bread for sandwiches. The young girls at counter were so sweet and so excited to speak English with me. One of them said, "Hello. How may I be of service to you today?" as if she had just read it out of her "How to Speak English" book. When I pointed to the rolls I wanted they refused to sell them to me because they were "yesterday". Then they had a lengthy discussion with each other in Chinese and then pointed to some different rolls and said "today". So I bought the recommended rolls and laughed with them as they tried to count out my change in English. She could think of the "ninety" but I had to help her with the "six".
Noodle Shop
At 7:30, Grant took us all down the street where there was a bit of a night market and fresh noodle shop he likes. We had great fun watching the man make the noodles in the front of the shop (see the pictures here), and we ordered our bowls by pointing to the different ingredients they had in various pots. I had noodles w/spinach, beef, and mushrooms. Very yummy and we all enjoyed it.
Ken was curious about specifically what he ate. So he went to the noodle-maker man and, through drawing cartoonish pictures on a pad, figured out that in one of the pots was something from a pig. When the man pointed to his stomach it became clear that what we thought were mushrooms were actually pig intestines. And - to be honest - they really weren't bad! Not that I would order them again, knowing what they were. But they were quite good!
We walked back to the hotel in a bit of a pig-intestine haze, bought water, and went to bed. Our room seems to be infested with cockroaches, but that's life sometimes. We just made sure to keep our shoes on and to keep our food sealed up.