Martin the Fisherman, Yangtze River, China

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The star attractions of the whole trip (apart from us, Ha ha!) were the Three Big Gorges and The Little Three Gorges. These however, will be flooded soon due to the contoversial Three Gorges Dam - which is why we wanted to do the trip. The Dam was started in 1993 and has just about finished (2 years ahead of schedule). It's 2.3km wide. 185m high. Controversial because, not only will it affect the beautiful landscape and endanger species, but 8000 unexcavated sites will be lost. There will be soil erosion, rockslides, earthquake dangers, not to mention the 2 million people that have been displaced etc etc etc. It will however, increase China's energy production by 10%, reducing the need for burning coal.

The boat itself journeyed through the Three Gorges which were still pretty impressive even though the water level has risen some: The first, Qutang gorge was 8km long with misty peaks of 1,200m high with steep precipices. The second, Wu gorge was 40km long with 2000m cliffs on one side and lush green slopes and ridges on the other. Third, Xiling gorge - zigzagged for about 76km - lush and green and then huge cliffs. Unfortunately, the visibility was poor because of the smog, but it was still really impressive. We took a side trip on a smaller boat to the Little Three Gorges chatting with 2 other Brits onboard, David and Sarah. An even smaller boat to the Mini Three Gorges was brightened up by our Ladies once again, and we had fun trying on hats and taking lots of photos - they seem to take even more photos than we do! They all screamed with laughter when Martin tried on the jacket and hat (the driver wouldn't let us take our life-jackets off!).

Finally, we approached the dam on our last afternoon. Instead of doing a tour of the Dam we opted to stay on the boat and go through the lock system. Five humongous, impressive locks that could hold 4-5 big boats like ours and each lock taking about an hour: closing the massive doors, reducing the water level about 20 m (60ft) each and reopening to the next lock. Although we didn't get to see the Dam the locks were very cool (and anyway, we heard later that the Dam was just a enormous concrete wall!!). *Mush