27th April – Wushan, a cruise on the Three Little Gorges

We wake today to fine weather, the first for many days, which is most  fortunate as we are going on a boat to the Three Little Gorges off the Yangtze River. Green explains to us where we are going on the boats.

The small gorges we travel on today are very steep and picturesque, the water is a lovely shade of green and we sip green tea & soak up the sun as we glide under magnificent bridges and over villages from a bygone era.

 

 

These gorges were flooded as part of the Three Gorges Dam project back in about 2002.  The residents of the villages that are now under water were relocated to villages over the back of the cliff tops.  The signs that point to a road or petrol station is the only reminder that there were once villages along the banks of the gorges.

A new 3 km long path has been built above the water line that links the villages up on top of the cliffs.

We are the only Europeans on the boat and a few of the Chinese passengers entertain us with their artistic poses for photos, so we try to copy them, but not sure that we succeeded.  I think we need to practice in front of a mirror when we have some time!

The boys make some new friends along the way.

The boat we are on is too big to travel down the smaller gorges so we transfer onto smaller boats for this part of the trip. Along the way we are greeted by local villagers singing, or playing an ancient instrument.  Our guide for this part of the trip is a bit of a character and encourages the passengers to dress up and pretend they are steering the boat, its all a bit of fun as a few of us have a go. I think Ros & I need to co-ordinate our leg lifts a bit better!

 

Once back on the big boat We have a delicious bowl of noodles that the crew  prepare for us for our lunch at a cost of $3 each.  The round trip takes about 4.5 hours so we have the afternoon to relax and catch up with car stuff & emails etc.

For dinner we walk down the street and find a restaurant that specialise in chicken dishes and fortunately Green is with us as she could read the signs. After we order the chicken hotpot the chef comes out to speak with Green to see if we’d like the chicken served the way the locals have it, so of course we say yes.  We had a rooster, not a chicken and they serve the whole bird.  The blood is made into jelly like cubes and put into a soup with green vegetables.  The inside organs are chopped up and cooked with spices and served in a side dish.  The bird is then left whole, head & feet intact, and cooked in broth with spices and chilli at the table in the hotpot.  The rooster breaks up so we can dip in and pull out the pieces that have some meat on them.  The soup is very tasty but I didn’t eat the jellied blood.  The side dish of the organs just taste like chicken livers, which is not surprising as they are in there. We give Green the head & one of the feet & Michael has the other one.  Green comments that we don’t suck the bones clean and that we waste so much meat & skin! I think this dish requires an acquired taste to do it justice.

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