An early start of 5.30am as we were going to enter the third and last gorge, Xiling Gorge, at 6.30am! Well, obviously some people preferred to stay in bed instead. Unfortunately sailing so early in the morning past the gorge also meant that it was not really bright enough to take good photos, and it didn't help when it was raining rather heavily. But there were still some interesting features along the gorge and I managed to finish another one roll of film!
After breakfast, we arrived at Sandouping just after 8am, and then took an onshore excursion to see the Three Gorges Dam construction site. It was pretty impressive---- after all, it's the biggest construction project in the world. The pouring rain dampened the excitement of the whole excursion.
More photo opportunities as we sailed past the second part of the Xiling Gorge towards Gezhouba Dam at Yichang. Within a span of 30 minutes, I heard no less than 4 people asking the crew if this part of the gorge would get flooded. Argh! Was it really that difficult to figure out? After all, we've just been to see the dam!
As if that was not enough, there was a lottery ticket sale for guessing what time (based on an official clock on the boat) the gate would re-open at the ship lock at Gezhouba Dam once the boat has reached the lower level. A pretty simple quiz but some passengers probably ended up asking more questions here than all the TV quiz shows put together. The quiz was for a good cause though, as half of the money would be put into an emergency fund for the crews.
Afternoon was a bit boring as the river bank got quite flat and we didn't have any more stops before reaching Wuhan the next day.
Dressed up for the Captain's farewell banquet and had our table 17 group photo taken. Dinner was good, and we had more Chinese bubbly.
After dinner, the staff put on a variety show (again not bad by amateur standard), and some of the passengers also ended up performing. They probably ran out of things to perform as we ended up to play musical chairs and I got dragged onto the stage to do it also. Thank God I got eliminated at round 2. Afterwards there was another disco and so danced and drank myself silly before heading back to the room.
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