The Three Gorges Dam, Yichang, China

by Jan
(USA)

THE THREE GORGES DAM...YICHANG, CHINA I came as a student to China and exploring its beauty was one of my goals of staying here.

On one of my vacations, I planned to see the world famous 'Three Gorges' on the Yangtze river. A main attraction is the visit to the 'Lesser Three Gorges'. These are very narrow gorges with only shallow water levels. It takes small boats to visit them.


I also went on a tour with one of these small boats. The sights are really spectacular. It happened a few times that the little boat got stuck - the boatmen used bambo sticks to keep the boat floating. Suddenly the boat stopped near to the side. Everyone had to get off. It appeared that our boat had an engine problem. When we were all on the shore of the river the boat left and went for spare parts... We were left alone in the middle of nowhere. Half an hour later the boat arrived again and we could go on to the excursion to the dam project.

This is really the most giant project I have ever seen. A complete city is built where the construction workers live, housing 50.000 people in total. The building site itself is unbelievable. Giant trucks are dwarfed by the walls of the dam and locks that are being built. The rock dust in the whole area blurs your view. My black boots were white covered with dust when I left the construction site. As a tourist you have only limited access to this site. There are obviously a lot of guards and they do not like you taking pictures of everything. thought despite of all that I managed to take some pictures. The natural beauty was just excellent for anyone to miss and also for tourist attraction there are adventure events like ropeway and bunjee jumping to have fun with. try to visit once and you will have a nice time there.