China Wu and Qutang Gorges and White Emperor City

Continuing along the river through the Wu and Qutang Gorges.

 Beautiful cliffs along both sides of the boat as we traveled down the river.

 It was fun to stand along the rail and take in the sights.   This area was not inhabited by people.

 We did see wild baboons once.

 Large peaks.  The water was emerald green.

 Wild mountain goats.

 Some hanging coffins.

 We had a stop and a tour up the Shannong Stream and a at the native village a show.

 China is 95% Han by ethnicity but the do have several minority tribes.  Many live along the river.

 We spent several nights on the cruise.  Misty weather at times.

 We we on another guided tour by the ship and this time there were four of us foreigners.  Again we had our own tour guide.

 This was at the White Emperor City, also known as the City of Poems, renowned for being a resort where famous Chinese poets went to contemplate nature and write poetry.  In Chinese the ancient poets were national celebrities.

 They had huge statues commemorating the poets.

 Jacquelyn in a lion guarded gateway to the city, called

 It was also a place of conflict where many historical battles were fought.

 Guanxing Pavilion.

 In the Tuogu Hall, a scene depicting Liu Bei entrusting his son and the who country to a famous prime minister Zhuge Liang.  Liu Bei was the first king of the Shu Kingdom and was defeated by the Wu Kingdom.  He retreated to the White Emperor City.  He became ill and his son was too young to govern, so he entrusted Zhuge Liang, who became very famous for his loyalty and integrity.

 Beautiful rock garden.  We saw this several times in China.  They bring in interesting rock formations to make a center piece of their garden.

 Me and a view from the top.

 Jacquelyn and a view from the top.

Both of us.  As you can tell, I really liked this view.

China Red Pagoda

Continuing along the Yangtze River on our river cruise we came to the Red Pagoda.

 This was the third day of the river cruise when we docked at Shi Bao Bhai and had a tour of the Red Pagoda.

 We had to cross this long footbridge to get to the island.

 The Red Pagoda is referred to as one of the eight construction wonders fo the world, built into the side of a rocky clift face and constructed without the use of nails.  It's 12 stories and stands over 100 feet high.  Lots of interesting Chinese figures.

 We had quite a climb up to the top.  It's the largest Pagoda in the world that was built without nails. There was a spectacular view of the river and valley below through this circular Chinese window.

 Inside the and on the grounds lots of interesting statues of Chinese warriors and emperors.

 This was an area where the Chinese would retreat to when one dynasty of another got into defeat and had to withdraw.  Also General Chiang Kai Shek retreated to here when the Japanese took over China and they held out here.

 A view of the bridge from the top.  Shows how high up we had to climb in the Pagoda.

 Our tour guide told the group this was a Chinese eternity bridge.  Very hard to get up on.  But if a couple crossed over it they would be together for eternity and just till death.  We thought that interesting.  After the group moved on, we hung back, and then we crossed over the Eternity Bridge.

Later we got separated with when I had to go back for my umbrella that I'd left in the observation tower.  They wouldn't let me catch up to where Jacquelyn was waiting because the grounds were closing.  So we went down separately not know where the other was.  But we found each other at the bottom near the bridge.

 The cruise continued on and we saw some many interesting sights, but have no idea what this giant head was.  Also we saw an interesting movie, "Last Emperor," that gave us a lot of the history of what happened when they stopped having emperors and had a democracy for a while, then communism.

 That evening was the Captain's Farewell Banquet.  It was really nice and there was this big dinner show.  These are dancing Chinese Dragons.

 The show was put on by the crew and staff, they didn't have seperate entertainers.  They were very good.

We really liked the dinner show.  Our Gate 1 group even got up and did a Texas Line Dance for the Chinese tourists that we had practiced.

China End of Yangtze River Cruise

Our river cruise ended at Chang Qing where we disembarked.  The river trip has been a fun part of the tour.

 This is a major emerging city in China.  Notice all the tall buildings in the background.  We were seeing these all over China.  They are apartment buildings.  At first they were being built exclusively by the government, not they they even have some private contractors building them.  They are doing a lot to raise the standard of living for the average people who lived in primitive villages and homes.  The tour guide told about when he grew up they had to go to the neighborhood shower or bathroom down the street.  These have one on each floor and each family can usually have their own room and have heating too.  We saw millions of these buildings all over and especially in big cities.

 This was a square where we saw some children with scooters.

 We got to tour the National Museum.

 Next to a Buddha statue.  There are only a few Pagodas and Temples left in China because they were almost all destroyed during the Cultural Revolution but they played a major role in Chinese history.

 Various costumes from the recognized Chinese minorities.

 The bed of the last empress.

 Ming Dynasty vases.

 Statue of Sun Yat Sen the father of Chinese democracy who led the revolution breaking away from the feudal system of royal emperors.

 And we found a Walmart.  This was fun.  We ran in for a quick look.  It was very crowded.  Our guide said it was very popular with the Chinese.  The only thing we bought some American candy bars.

 We had some free time at a modern town shopping area which had some high end stores.  Also a Chinese movie star was making an appearance so there were a lot of teens there to see him.  It reminded us of how people act back home like in Los Angeles.

Next we took a bus to Xian, which was the ancient capital of 11 dynasties.  On our way to dinner we stopped at the Muslim district, a very crowded popular shopping street.  It was wall to wall people and we almost had to push our way through.

 Food booths were one of the main attractions.

 Lots of fruits.

 A view of how crowded it was.

 A pig hanging up to sell meat.

 A beautiful building lit with lights.

 This is us wit our tour group.  Most of our meals were at group tables like this.  They would bring out a dish and we would each get some of it.  At this resturant they are famous for their Chinese dumplings.  We had the dumpling dinner with 18 different ones to sample.

Outside the restaurant.