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English Version 51
Thursday 22.05.08
Yangtze River, Wushan
I fell asleep on my back. I can feel in my throat that I`ve been snoring
most of the night. I hope Burghard is a good sleeper. I wake up at 5 and
just HAVE to look out of the window. There`s a window in my side of the
cabin that can open, and I end up sitting watching the day rise over the
Yangtze River. A faint sound from the engine but besides it`s so
peaceful! You can always sleep. The boat goes slower and stops
eventually. There`s a knock at the door at 5.30 and I know what it
means, we`re about to arrive at the first gorge. When we try to enter
the top deck it`s closed. It costs you to get up there. Now. It didn`t
last night. Si shi quai, I can hear her say. 40. I find a hundred note
and pay for us both. Especially Burghard who bought the whole packages
is upset, but we have to wait with our complaints. It`s too dark for
pictures with my camera, so I have to let do with the impressions in my
mind. A photo can`t catch all this in the faint light.
When we complain the guide tells us it`s a kind of deposit. We`ll get 10
back when we give back the new plastic card we now wear around our
necks. Burghard tells her it will be in the new guide from LP. He knows
a German "verlag" that cooperates with them. It`s not her job to
understand that sort of things.
We eat breakfast. I share my supplies with him. I went bananas in the
supermarket and filled the extra sport bag I got from the consul. It`s
nice I now have someone to share with. He deliver the coffee and some
cakes.
Soon after we`re at 3 lesser Gorges, to which we both bought access and
we have to enter another boat and on a 6 hours tour up a minor river. We
get a small green ticket, walk through two other boats that`s nearer the
boardwalk and changes the little green ticket for a green plastic card
and a ticket. I have to give back the plastic card 5 m`s ahead and now
I`ve just put it away!
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| 3 Gorges and shining lamps | They shall miss nothing at home | On our way up the 3 lesser gorges |
Maybe the mountains are not that high here in 3 lesser Gorges, but
the river is more narrow and it`s a normal tour boat, where you can look
freely in all directions.
I`m allowed into the cockpit, it`s not that there is more to see from
there, but I regard it as a special gesture and think I have to give
back something so in poor Chinese I tell about my evacuation from
Maoxian and the missing bike. The guide is this time a "pure" Chinese
without any English and she`s babbling all the way in a yellow squeaking
megaphone.
When I once more is invited into the cockpit I wonder, until I see a box
with the writing: Boatmen`s tip. Aha.. Now we get a new red ticket and
the guide confirms what I just wrote: no English. Out in the back a man
comes touching my arm and my beard. I think he`s too close, but when I
look at the Chinese I can see I`m a bit unusual. And I who`s not that
hairy!
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| Going down from the "new" town | We were not the only ones to sleep to the yellow megaphone |
We make a stop and walks up to a town where "the old part" apparently
has been moved because of the dam. When the dam is finished the level of
the water will be 175 m. Now it`s about 150 m I think. Then you don`t
have to walk all those stairs as now. We go on and changes once more to
a smaller boat in which "natives" take us the last part. The old man in
front with the flat Chinese hat is talking and takes to singing once.
His voice is fine, I would have liked to have it on tape.
During the sailing more music is heard from up the rocks, where a man is
sitting in a little green cabin playing a horn. The clou is a 4 person
quire on another rock and then we`re heading "home".
When I`m on my bicycle 5 hours of sleep is no problem, but here where
I`m inactive the "squeaking yellow megaphone" makes me sleepy. Burghard
has gone to sleep long ago. My snoring must have kept him awake.