Three Gorges Dam. Largest dam in the world. 2.4km long, 15m deep at top, 124m deep at bottom. HUGE.
Whether you agree it should have been built or not given the environmental and human implications it is a very impressive feat of engineering.
Martyn managed to stay up to see our boat go through the lock system down the side of the dam. This was at about 11.30pm and I had been asleep for an hour. Missed him leaving the room, woke up when he came back. I was in time to look out the window and see the boat moving down instead of along!
(yep, that's a 7x5 container barge and 3 cruise ships, there were also 2 other barges behind us - all in the same lock.)
Anyway, dam very impressive. Then we went along the last gorge of the three gorges on the Yangtse river but actually our ummmm, 7th counting the little side excursions! Then we found another dam at YingChang where we disembarked and had lunch. This second dam was actually built first and is 0.2km longer but still not as big as the three gorges dam.
After lunch bus to train station and then night train to Xian which is where we are now.. Of course given that we’ve spent about 95% of the last 4 days on bus, boat or train we still feel like we are moving. It was very odd having breakfast in the restaurant and looking out the window at scenery that stayed still.
Better go – apparently there is a Terracotta Army around here somewhere………
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