Daniel's Life in Wuhan

It's finally our turn to visit the one of the most admired sights in the world, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Gathering time was 6.20am but I woke up at 6.10am as I had a long night and the first thing I did after waking up was to check my results on NPal, which turned out to be disappointing. After some delays, we finally set off at 7am. It's a 5.5 hour journey to Yi Chang, the neighbouring city of Wuhan. We were slated to have a tour around the Three Gorges Dam followed by dinner and transfer to another city to take the cruise.

Here we go!

Our lunch! One of the best we had!

The ship lock that we are going to pass through on our last night

Group B jump shot!
Edy, Yoke May, Daniel (me) and Jarold

Photo at the dam

We were brought to dinner after the visit. After dinner, we went to the port to prepare for our boarding. It's crowded with people as there are at least 5 cruises boarding. Finally, we settled down in our cruise after 1.5 hours of waiting. I am in room 106 with Adrian. Before boarding, we were told that there are rats, cockroaches and other creepy crawlies in the room but we were very fortunate not to encounter any of those during our stay. However, a good news is that the toilet here is sitting, not squatting! Shortly after boarding, we set sail for our journey!

Our room. Small but cosy!

The next day when we woke up we were already at Chongqing, a city out of the Hubei province. Its full name is 重庆直辖市 which means that it does not belong to any province in the People's Republic of China but it once belonged to the Sichuan province till 1997. Our first location was 白帝城 which looks like an imitation of the Great Wall of China. It also has museums with displays of ancient artefacts such as the suspended coffins. It's cool to see these artefacts as it's a once in a lifetime experience for me. We had to climb 200 - 300 steps of stairs

Our breakfast onboard the cruise

Our room: 106

The long flight of stairs up

Me and Jun Ru

Some random staircases

One of the suspended coffins

The long bridge leading to 白帝城

Another cruise just beside us

MDE unite!

Time for us to get to our next destination which was 神农溪, located in another city in Hubei province, 恩施. We had to transfer to another cruise to bring us to the stream where we will take the little boats to tour the river. The boatmen jumped off the boat when we reached a place where the water was only 1 metre deep to pull our boats as that was part of their tradition. However, this sight might be gone forever a few decades down the road as they are getting old and their children has gone to larger cities like Beijing and Shanghai to work. A kind man helped us to collect stones for us to take back as souvenirs.

Beautiful mountains

Picture taken from my room

One of the best photos I took

Boarding the boat. Each boat can carry 17 people

Beautiful waters!

The kind man that helped us get stones

The stone I got!

They are working very hard...
Picture edited by Polim

Mist floating on the water

Another picture of beautiful waters

At 10.30pm, it's time for us to cross the historical place, the Three Gorges Ship Lock. It's the largest in the world and can handle ships up to 3000 metric tons. It consists of 5 sections and we will descend in sections of about 20 metres each as the elevation between the 2 levels of water is more than 100m. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience for me to see this sight as I had been wanting to witness it.

The view of the gate before it closes

Close-up of the gates, they are real big, about 30m tall!

Other cruises and boats alongside

Look at how much we descended!

The last morning, we just woke up for breakfast and back to Wuhan! I miss my hostel after leaving for 3 days! Back in Wuhan at 2pm and rested before going for lunch and then dinner.

Reflection

As mentioned earlier, China is a place with a rich history. Natural and human creations are visible on the soil of China as we explore further. In Singapore, we do not have this privilege as our whole country is urbanised. Getting the chance to witness the project of the century, the Three Gorges Dam is also a very historical moment of my life. The boatmen pulling our boat is very hardworking and this is a spirit that we should learn from them as they start working when they are 20 years old till they are about 60. This shows the commitment to their work and their passion for it.

9:49 PM