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CRUISES: China’s Yangtze, the River of Heaven

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

As the Amazon nourishes Brazil and the Nile Egypt, so the Yangtze feeds China. At 3,956 miles the third longest river in the world, it's home to 1/3 of China's population and that means 1/12 of the world. One half of China's food is grown along its fertile banks. From its source 20,000 feet high in the Tibetan Plateau, the Yangtze twists and turns -- like the dragon so beloved by the Chinese -- till it pours its stream into the East China Sea, so silt-laden the ocean looks mud-stained for 70 miles.

This mystical waterway, for centuries a romantic inspiration for artists and poets, wanders past ancient pagodas and homes with terraces running up the slopes of mountains, and fields so old the farmers have lost track of their ownership, their genealogy and very time itself. It rushes through gorges whose sheer cliffs sometimes rear a majestic three or four thousand feet above the river. And always it tumbles, untamed, headlong for the sea. 

There, the Yangtze mouth stretches 55 miles across but in one upstream location, at Tiger Gorge, it is only 90 feet wide. About 1800 miles up-river beyond the famous Three Gorges lies Chongqing, China's largest city with an area population of 33 million but accessible only to small boats less than 3,000 tons, a difficulty that makes it "easier to get into Heaven than South West China.”

In 1919, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the physician who is "the father of modern China," suggested damming the Yangtze to facilitate navigation and prevent the river's notorious flooding. (One million people have died from Yangtze flooding in the last 100 years.) In 1994 after 73 years of discussion, China began building the massive dam that will raise the river level by 575 feet. The Three Gorges Project will be completed in 2009. Ecologists suggest it will submerge 13 cities, 140 towns, 1352 villages and 8,000 archaeological sites, harm wildlife, create pollution and endanger the nation if the dam breaks but the project, like Beijing's preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games, is well on schedule.

Initially there was tourist talk: "See the Yangtze before it's gone," but now it's clear the dam will help tourism by making river cruises more comfortable soft adventures -- and the Lesser Gorges of the Daning River tributary will become more accessible. Several riverboat companies are gearing up for this including Viking Cruises, Regal and the Chinese owned OTC -- but upscale Victoria Cruises has been on the river for 12 years, has the best multi-lingual people including Western cruise directors, the best boats, the newest being the most elaborate and luxurious. Victoria Cruises really has no competition. It's owned by the Chinese American Pi family in New York who "run it not as investment for the family but as a legacy." It shows.

Its latest ship, the Victoria Katrina, made its maiden voyage in 2004 with seven-night cruises from Chongqing that include land excursions to Wanxian, site of the 1926 gunboat incident with the British and now the Three Gorges Museum with its demonstrations of the cliff burial of the Ba people who lived there 3,500 to 1,800 years ago. A half day trip on a smaller ship up the Lesser Gorges of the Daning past the cliffs where the coffins once hung , suspended high to show filial devotion and to be close to heaven, brings all this alive. The ship guide actually points out a coffin still there, neck-breaking high, on the river wall.

The cruise includes a visit to this dam that's five times wider than Hoover Dam and, with 26 giant turbines, has eight times the generating power of the Aswan Dam on the Nile. After the 1989 debacle at Tiananmen Square it is China's effort at international public relations and with the second largest canal in the world, an global gesture to Panama: The canal in China will be free to shipping.

And China will be showing the world that although the Yangtze can be tamed, the industrial dragon that is China herself is now out of the cage. 

 
 

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