“Ayah, ayah,” chant the four wiry Chinese men, hitched like oxen to our peapod-shaped wooden boat. The men trudge along a path on shore, pulling our boatload of 10 tourists upstream along the Shennong River, a tributary of the Yangtze.
On this, the third morning of our four-day Yangtze River cruise, we have traded our mother ship, the East Queen, for a flotilla of primitive boats.
As I trail my fingers in the Shennong’s icy, mirror-clear water, I contemplate the remote stream’s fate. The waterway and the people who live along it will not be spared the effect of China’s massive new Three Gorges Dam at Sandouping on the Yangtze. When it becomes operational in 2009, the dam will hold back the waters of the Yangtze, bloating the Shennong with the larger river’s murky gray-brown water. With government compensation of 3,000 yuan (about $360) for housing, the families of the boatmen, who also work as farmers, will be forced to move to the bustling city of Chongqing, farther upstream on the Yangtze. In the alien urban setting, they will have to start over.
The boatmen strain forward, their chests girded in white cloth halters hooked to the boat’s bamboo ropes. With only thin straw sandals on their calloused feet, they tow us up the rocky, shallow riverbed. Arm and leg muscles bulge from spare bodies draped in flimsy shirts and shorts. I shift uneasily, painfully aware of the weight I add. “Ayah” — an echo from the past, from mountain plank roads high above the Yangtze, where trackers towed boats through dangerous rapids, before engines, steam and dynamite quieted the river’s fury.
As we move through a narrow gorge on the Shennong, the water churns with greater strength. I lift the blue plastic flap of our craft’s makeshift canopy and peer through the mist at the towering limestone walls that surround us. Whirling rapids whip the boat ahead of us toward the bottom of a cliff. Its occupants shout and laugh as if on a theme-park ride, but their aft boatman does not smile. He casts his metal-hooked bamboo pole at a jutting rock and leans backward as if pulling in a fighting fish. His face twists with effort. Beside him, two rowers pull furiously on their oars. Slowly the craft moves back to midstream.
Our small boat approaches a shallow curve of land, where men in dark suit jackets and bathing trunks direct boat traffic in the turn downstream while teenage boys hawk wood carvings and rocks.
Earlier in the morning, as the red sun rose over the mountains, our ship cruised past the dam site. In the eerie glow of electric lights, we peered at the cofferdam, a sloping concrete structure that diverts water from the building site. In its shadow, we watched as men and machines cut into the mountain. Once the dam is completed, the cofferdam, like many cities, farms and gorges, will be submerged.
I feel an urgency to absorb the details of each scene we pass, aware that the landscape of the Yangtze soon will be altered forever.
The Chinese government insists that the dam’s benefits will be worth the fuss. It will control the periodic catastrophic flooding of the Yangtze, make it easier for ships to navigate the waterway, and bring new economic benefits to the Hubei province. But environmentalists and scholars see a darker side. Wildlife will be displaced, and important artifacts and cultural treasures of the region will be submerged.
The Chang Jiang, the Long River — or the Yangtze, as Westerners call it — is the third-longest waterway in the world, bowing only to the Amazon and the Nile. Originating in the snowy Tibetan mountains, the serpentine Yangtze cuts through the heart of China for 3,900 miles to spill into the East China Sea at Shanghai. Our ship navigates 841 miles of the river’s middle span, sailing upstream from Wuhan, an industrial center comprised of three cities, to Chongqing, a crowded city perched high on a rocky promontory.
The haunting beauty of the Three Gorges, between Yichang and Fengie, draws both natives and tourists to the Yangtze. As we enter Xiling Gorge, the longest of the Three Gorges and the one with the most-dangerous currents, our ship seems headed for the rocks.
“We’re lined up just as we should be,” our guide, Amy, reassures us as the current pushes us back to the center of the twisting river.
The mountains stand in the distance like rows of paper cutouts. Through the misty haze, Amy points out the imaginatively named rock formations such as Horse-Lung Ox-Liver, a gorge from which rises a lump of reddish shale that doubles as the bull’s liver and a dark brown rock transformed into a horse’s lung. Like a child searching for the hidden picture in a puzzle, I tilt my head at various angles to identify the shapes.
I focus my binoculars high up a sheer-faced, stony wall, scanning for a “hanging coffin,” seemingly suspended but actually perched on a ledge. All I can see is a blurred image of a few wooden planks, for the box’s color blends perfectly with its natural setting. During the New Stone Age from the 8th Century B.C. to the 3rd Century B.C., the Ba, an ancient people who lived along the Yangtze, buried their dead at precipitous heights. It is thought that the Ba believed that the higher the burial site, the more respected the deceased. How the Ba accessed such places remains a mystery.
Closer to the river, where stone walls snake down terraced hillsides of farms and towns, the impact of the Three Gorges Dam already is visible.
Abandoned primitive shacks cling to the mountainside, their roofs removed by the government so residents cannot return. Looming behind them on the high ground are clusters of tall, white apartment buildings that stake out the future coastline. Like paintings of modern, hard-edged art, they stand in stark contrast to the simple human scenes that unscroll everywhere along the river — an old man straddling a water buffalo, families in wide-brimmed hats working the fields, children playing in the furrows, a man at the shore pulling in his fishing net.
Later in the midafternoon, the ship’s horn sounds to announce our arrival at Wu (Witches) Gorge, with its 12 uniquely shaped peaks, crowned by smoky clouds. A golden eagle floats above, tracing the jagged line of stone. Though smaller and more delicate than the other pinnacles, the Peak of the Goddess stands out, resembling a woman gazing at the sky.
Wu Gorge, with its stony barrel towers, corrugated walls and striated flanks, reveals fragments of the past: a thread of road, gouged out of the mountain 100 years ago during the Ching Dynasty (1644-1912); six Chinese characters that proclaim “Wu Gorge boasts craggy cliffs” were engraved on a gray-white rock face during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), thought to be a tribute to a 3rd Century politician.
But the treasure chest of the river is the smallest of the Three Gorges, Qutang (Wind Box), only 5 miles long. Inscriptions on cliffs and stone tablets date back 1,000 years; and Ba relics, such as bone, stone, jade and pottery, were discovered in caves here. The square holes of Meng Liang Stairway zigzag up the sienna rock.
Just below is Hanging Monk Rock, with a tuft of moss like a green rope anchored at the feet of the “monk.”.
From a muddy bank, children wave to us as our ship exits the gorge at Kui Gate. Two cliffs jut out, one from each side, like doors closing behind us. Just beyond the gate, we see three pagodas that memorialize those who have lost their lives in boats on the turbulent Yangtze.
Shibaozhai (Stone Treasure Block), a small 600-year-old village north of Fengdu, is our last day’s stop. As we leave the ship and enter the town, the market day’s frenzy sweeps us into the crush of buyers and sellers on the long, narrow street of stalls. Sights and smells drown our senses — a man pulling his plump pig on a rope; an old woman weaving thin hemp sandals the same as our boatmen wore; scents of aromatic spices — hot Sichuan pepper, the licorice-tasting star-shaped anise; sheaves of tobacco laid out on the ground.
Amy waves her flag and hurries us along to a spectacular cliff-hanging pagoda, its 11 red levels crowned by traditional curved roofs. On the stone frame of its tall, intricately carved entrance is painted “175,” indicating the level to which the water will rise after the new dam is opened. The lively street scene we passed will be erased, though the temple and pavilion above it will endure on an island surrounded by the waters of the Yangzte.
IF YOU GO
– THE DETAILS
In 2000, Orient Royal Cruise ships East Queen and East King will sail the Yangtze River between Yichang and Chongqing, with alternating cruises starting in each city.
To get to Yichang or Chongqing from Chicago requires flying to Shanghai or Beijing. United Airlines (800-241-6522) flies from Chicago to both cities, with a connection in Tokyo. Smaller planes go from Shanghai and Beijing to Yichang or Chongqing.
Once there, the upstream trip from Yichang to Chongqing is five days and four nights; rates start at $510 per person, double occupancy. The downstream excursion, from Chongqing to Yichang, lasts four days and three nights; rates start at $600, double occupancy, in peak season, less in off-season. Group rates may be cheaper.
For details, call Orient Royal Cruise in Parsippany, N.J., at 888-565-4088.
