Facts and Details

THREE GORGES AND THREE GORGES DAM

The Three Gorges (downriver from Chongqing between Fengjie, Sichuan and Yichang, Hubei) is one of China's five premier tourist sights along with the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Xian and Guilin. The gorges have recently filled up with water and become part of the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam. The scenery is not as spectacular as it once was but is still pretty good.

Extending for about 200 kilometers, the Three Rivers Gorge is a channel of rock cut through towering mountains by the Yangtze River. What makes the area so incredible is the height of the limestone mountains, the steepness of the cliffs, and the narrowness of the river. In some places the cliffs are 800 meters high. In other places, there are fantastic rock towers and crags with ferns, plants and trees growing on ledges and in cracks. In the distance are green mountains. Along the slopes are farmers tending small plots. Along some of the cliffs are waterfalls and 2000-year-old “hanging coffins.” On the shores are some dirty industrial towns.

Through much of the gorges, there is no shore or place for a boat to go except down river. In the narrower portions of the gorges the water used to move with alarming speed but has now been smoothed out by the Three Gorges Dam. In other places, the water has always been calm and sailboats can actually be pushed upstream by powerful winds that gain force where the gorge narrows.

The most famous gorges are just below Bai De ("White King City") and the lesser gorges are just above Yichang. The Three Gorges themselves are: Wu (the deepest gorge), Xiling (the longest gorge) and Qutang (only five miles long but regarded the most beautiful of the three gorges). According to legend they were created by the goddess Yao Ji to redirect the Yangtze around the petrified remains of a dozen dragons she had slain for tormenting peasants.

Some 4,000 years ago the Three Gorges section of the Yangtze River was the home of the Ba, an ancient people known for their craftsmanship and unique writing. Around 1,800 years ago is was the home of the kingdom of Shu. In dynastic China, the gorges inspired painters and poets and destroyed boats.

According to one 18th century report, 1 out of every 10 junks sailing through the Three Gorges was damaged, 1 in 20 was completely destroyed and only 20 percent of the junks that sailed upriver to Chongqing made it unscathed. To relive the stress of the journey many crew members smoked opium. For good luck they sprinkled the blood of roosters on the bow of their ships, threw rice in the rapids, and hired shaman to wave yellow flags with the Chinese characters for the "Power of Water."

When an accident occurred, swimmers were paid 400 yuan for each live person they retrieved and 800 yuan for each dead body. More money was paid for the dead because crew members believed that the ghosts of unclaimed victims hung on to the backs of their boat as gave them trouble when they went thorough the rapids. Web Site: Wikipedia Wikipedia Map: Maps fo China Maps of China Odyssey Tours China Odyssey Tours China Travel Planner China Travel Planner

Trackers

Trackers were laborers that pulled boats through the gorges. Chinese junks are outfit with ropes and harnesses so that people on board the boat can pull it when the junk is traveling upstream or into a headwind. Children often perform this task as if they were mules. If a tailwind doesn't kick up they may have to do this for hours or even days. Up until the 8th century A.D. paddle wheel river boats were powered by human-powered cage wheels

Large boats used be pulled upstream on the Yangtze by teams of hundred of laborers known as trackers, who strapped to the boats with long ropes. In the Three Gorges you can still see footpaths used by trackers—until the 1950s, when engineers blasted treacherous rocks out of the river—to get through areas where the river is sided by steep cliffs.

Trackers still pull vessels up tributaries of the Yangtze. They often haul ropes far ahead of the boats and are given instructions by drum beats of varying rhythms. Large junks were are sometimes movers forward by 400 or more trackers, assisted by strong swimmers who loosen the ropes if they get caught on rocks.

The trackers were often whipped. "Often our men have to climb like monkeys," a Yangtze River traveler wrote, "and their backs are lashed by two chiefs to urge them to work at critical moments." Little wrote the one saw a tracker chief leap in the water and roll in the sand until a monstrous creature and then did a dance, howled and whipped his trackers.”

In his book Through The Yoon Toon Gorge. English trader Archibald Little wrote: "The trackers mark time with their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step, their bodies bent forward, so their finger almost touch the ground...Eighty or a hundred men make a tremendous noise at this work, almost drowning out the sound of the rapids, and so often a half a dozen junks' crews are towing like this, one behind the other. from this solemn stillness of the gorge to the lively commotion of a rapid, the contrast is most startling."

In his book A Single Pebble, John Hersey wrote: "I turned to watch the trackers...making many tons of cypress go uphill on a fiercely resisting roadway of water. It was a moving sight—horribly depressing to see more than 300 human beings reduced to the level of work animals, blind-folded asses and oxen; yet thrilling too, to see the inestimable force of their cooperation for the 350 cloth shoes of their each step up the slope were planted in the same moment, and the great sad trackers's cries 'Ayah!' were sung in great unison of agony and joy and the junks did move."

Describing barefoot trackers in the 1970s, Paul Theroux wrote, I saw "five men leaping onto the shore with tow lines around their waists. They ran ahead, then jerked like dogs on a leash, and immediately began towing the junk against the current...They strained, leaning forward, and almost imperceptively the sixty-foot junk begins to move upstream. There is no level footpath. The trackers are rock climbers; they scamper from boulder to boulder, moving higher until the boulders give out, and then dropping down, pulling and climbing until there is a stretch where the junk can sail. The only difference ...between trackers long ago and trackers today is that they are no longer whipped."

Interesting Sights in the Three Gorges include Goddess Peak in Wu Gorge, reportedly named after a young girl who brings good luck to all those who pass by it; Men-ling's Ladder, where a Shu army surprised an enemy by making holes into the face of a towering cliff and ascending the cliff on a ladder; small terraced farms high along narrow ridges; ancient paths carved into sheer rock cliffs for teams of trackers; and waterfalls gushing out of crevasses in green mountains.

Almost every mountain, side gorge and cliff has a name like the Fairy Princess Rock, the Ox-Liver and Horse-Lung Gorge, Pearl Number One and Two, the Seated Woman or the Punching Lions. There is graffiti on many rocks.

Shibaozhai Stone Treasured Fortress is a 12-story wooden pagoda dubbed as the Pearl of the Yangtze. An embankment was built to protect it when the water levels rose. Baidicheng, at the entrance of Qutang Gorge, is a temple that marks where the poet Li Bai composed a famous poem It has been placed on an artificial island.

Three Gorges Boat Trips

Three Gorges Boat Trips are how most tourists visit the Three Gorges area. Some of the boats are in good condition and tourist have had a wonderful time. Others have broken plumbing, sagging beds, shabby cabins, poor maintenance and rats, and tourists have an awful time. If you are worried about getting stuck on bad boat you are advised to make your travel arrangements with a reputable tour operator like Victoria Cruises (☎ 800-348-8084), Viking River Cruises (877-668-4546); and Uniworld Grand River Cruises (800-733-7820).

Most of the downstream cruises begin in Chongqing. Passengers usually disembark at Yichang or Wushan, but some continue downriver 1,500 miles to Shanghai. The high season months are April, May, September and October. The shoulder season months are March, June, July, August and November. During the winter, the views are often veiled by mists. The rates for trip with reputable tour company run between $100 and $150 a day.

The Three Gorges has been diminished by the dam but not affected too much. Boats that ran along the river expect to continue working on the lake. Mountains that towered 2,600 to 3,600 feet above the water will be 2,100 feet to 3,100 feet above the water instead. The cliffs are still impressive in many places but the once raging currents have been tamed and the water is now calm. Dizzing footpaths that had ben carved into the cliffs have been submerged. Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide

Places in the Three Rivers Area

Chongqing (on the Yangtze River within Sichuan) is dirty, industrial city of 12 million people. The starting point of many boat trips on the Yangtze River, it is located on the confluence of Jialing and Yangtze Rivers on the edge of the Three Gorges dam reservoir. It was the capital of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government during World War II in part it was too far inland for Japanese bombers to reach. Even so it was heavily bombed.

Chonqing is famous for hot pot and is nicknamed the "furnace of the Yangtze".for its industrial activity and fiery food. it has an interesting old town with spectacular flights of stairs that wind up and down the mountains wedged between the two rivers. There are tall buildings, including one that looks the Chrysler building. A $200 million opera house is under construction.

Chongqing has modernized very quickly and is currently experiencing a construction boom. It is building an extensive subway system and has built and expanded deepwater port .for increased boat traffic from the Three Gorges Dam project. It also boasts a 1,693-foot tower and has a Carrefour and Ikea. Bicycles are rarely seen because the city is hilly and rises up so steeply from the Yangtze.

Chongqing has been called the Chicago of China because it is kind of gateway to the wilderness of the West and is major transportation hub where rail lines, roads and river outlets all merge. The city is a major car manufacturer, producing about 1 million vehicles a year, and has attracted workers tired of the coastal areas, wanting to work closer to home.. The economy has been growing by 14 percent a year (15.6 percent in 2006), compared to 10 or 11 percent for the rest of the country, and investment from than 30 of the world’s top 500 corporations has come in Chongqing’s GDP rose 15.2 percent to $2,030 in 2006 but that still less than a quarter of Shanghai’s and half of Chengdu’s.

Chongqing and has recently been removed from Sichuan province and turned into a municipality the size of Austria—with 30.2 million people—that answers directly to Beijing. The municipality of Chongqing embraces rugged mountains, villages and inaccessible rural counties broken up by gorges as well as city streets and concrete buildings. About 45 percent of the municipality’s residents live in the city. In 2007, government leaders issued a directive stating that 70 percent of the municipality must be urbanized by 2020 in an effort to modernize it. To meet this goal a half million people must move from the countryside to the urban areas a year..

Air pollution produced by the city's factories is a problem. It gets trapped by the mountains and canyons around the city. Tthe rain here is more acidic than any other part of China. Many of the people who lost their homes to the reservoir where resettle din Chongqing.

In 2008, the respected party boss Bo Xiliaai, was put in charge of Chongqing with the mandate of radically transforming the city and the region into an economic powerhouse ranking with the major cities son the coast, Bo has great success making of the coast city of Dalian when he was mayor there in the 1990s. As Chongqing gears up the future it is helped by its access to energy and markets—it gets a lot of power from the Three Gorges dam and is home of large natural gas reserves and is accessible to the 100 million people in Sichuan—but is hurt by its inland location, namely that shipping up the Yangtze is time-consuming and expensive.

Tourist Office: Chongqing Tourist Bureau, 175 Renmin Rd, 630015, Chongqing, Sichuan, China, tel. (0)-811-6386-3364, fax: (0)- 811-6385-1448 Web Sites: Travel China Guide Travel China Guide Maps: Lonely Planet Lonely Planet China Map Guide China Map Guide ; Joho Maps Joho Maps Subway Map: Urban Rail.net Hotel Web Site: Sinohotel Sinohotel Budget Accommodation: Check Lonely Planet books; Travellerspoint (click China and place in China) Travellerspoint Getting There: Chongqing is accessible by air, bus train and Yangtze river boat. Travel China Guide (click transportation) Travel China Guide

Fuling (down river from Chongqing in Sichuan Province) is the pickle capital of China. Like many Yangtze River towns, it occupies a steep slope next to the river. Web Sites : Travel China Guide (click scenic spots) Travel China Guide

Wushan (in Sichuan near the border of Hubei Provinces) is jammed against the northern shore of the Yangtze and is made up of winding streets and alleys on a terraced limestone hill. A new town has been built for the 80,000 or so people displaced by the Three Gorges dam. Tourist come here for trips on the “mini Three Gorges” on the Daning River.

Sights in the area include Dachang, famous for its wooden houses, and Fengdu, the City of Ghosts, a collection of Buddhist and Taoist temples situated on a mountaintop and known to Chinese as a purgatory for lost souls.

There are boat-shaped coffins that hang high in the gorges of the Yangtze tributaries. They were made by the ancient Ba People who were kicked out of the region more than 1,600 years ago by imperial Chinese armies. According to legend the Ba sacrificed people to tigers. Web Sites: Travel China Guide (click scenic spots) Travel China Guide

Three Little Gorges Three Little Gorges (accessible from Wushan) are said to be even more impressive than the Three Gorges. To reach them you must go to Wushan and take a 6-hour launch trip on the Daning River. Other popular trips include a white water trip in peapod sampan down Dragon Gorge.

Qutang Gorge (one of the Three Gorges) is eight kilometers long and the first, most spectacular and shortest of the three gorges. Boats travel through sections of the gorge only 140 meters wide and negotiate bends that make the river look as if it has disappeared. Along the copper-colored cliffs are cedar coffins of ancient Ba people and footpaths used by trackers, laborers who roped-together and pulled cargo junks upstream through the gorge until the 1950s, when engineers blasted treacherous rocks out of the river.

Wu Xia Gorge (Witches Gorge, one of the Three Gorges) is 40 kilometers long and the second and formally the most treacherous of the Three Gorges. The river hereis lined with 3,000-foot-high limestone peaks with names like Climbing Dragon and Flying Phoenix. It used to be filled with rapids and whirlpools but these have been calmed by the dam. Strong gusts of wind howl through the narrow passages.

Badong (down river from Fuling in Sichuan Province) is a Yangtze River city within the Three Gorges. Web Sites: Travel China Guide (click scenic spots) Travel China Guide

Xiling Gorge (one of the Three Gorges) is 75 kilometers long and the last and longest gorge. Junks running downriver here used to reach speeds of 20 miles per hour and were occasionally splintered apart by submerged rocks that have been either dredged or blasted out or submerged.

Gezhouba Dam (northwest of Yichang in Sichuan Province) was the largest hydro-electric project in China until the Three Gorges Dam was built. The dam is 8,000 feet long and 210 feet high and produces 2.7 billion kilowatts of power every year. Located at the dam is the Chinese Sturgeon Aquarium, a project that is intended to help the Chinese sturgeon, the largest sturgeon in the world, reach spawning grounds blocked by the dam. Fish ladders, like those used by salmon in North America, have been built to help the fish go up and down stream.

Three Gorges Dam

Three Gorges Dam (near Yichang in Hubei Province) has been called China's most ambitious project since the Great Wall. Comprised of one massive dam and several smaller dams, it is the world's largest hydroelectric project and is named after the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, one of China's great natural wonders, which the reservoirs behind the dams will partly submerge.

The Three Gorges Dam is a cement dam that is 186 meters (610 feet) high and runs for 1.3 miles (2.3 kilometers) across the Yangtze River. It will contain twenty-six 400-ton turbines, the world's largest, when completed. The reservoir produced by dam will be 370 miles long (600 kilometers), about the same length as Lake Superior. A total of 200 miles of canyons with spectacular limestone formations will lie under water when the Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2009 at a cost of $30 billion.

Three Gorges is the world’s largest dam in terms of water displacement, flood control; and power generation. There are higher and wider dams but none come close to producing as much electricity—18,200 megawatts, enough energy to supply 10 percent of China's electricity needs and the equivalent of the electricity produced by 18 nuclear power plants. The electrical generating capacity of the world’s next four largest dams are 12,600 megawatts by Itaipú in Brazil, 10,300 megawatts by Guri in Venezuela, 6,809 by Grand Coulee in the U.S., and 6,400 in Sayano-Shushensk in Russia.

Three Gorges Dam is five times wider than Hoover dam and is as tall as a 60 story building. Large ships will by bypass the dam via two five-stage locks that will raise or lower the ships 500 feet. Smaller vessels will be moved up and down on a ship elevator.

About 60,000 workers were employed by the Three Gorges Dam project, with about 25,000 working on the dam itself. They used 32-ton dump trucks and giant drills that cut through granite. One dump truck driver told National Geographic that her earned 25 cents a truckload, about two dollars a day. He lived with his coworkers in a hillside shed without water or toilet facilities.

History of the Three Gorges Dam Project: The idea for huge dam project on the Yangtze was first proposed in 1916 by Sun Yat-sen and later pushed by Mao Zedong, who wrote a poem about it: “Walls of stone will stand upstream to the west, to hold back Wushan’s clouds and rain, until a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges.” .

Japanese engineers did some survey work around the dam site when they occupied China. This work was continued U.S. Bureau of Reclamation under the Kuomintang and by the Soviets in the early years under the Communists. The first step of the Three Gorges project was the completion of the 176-foot-high Gezhou Dam, which opened in 1989 after 20 years of construction.

The current dam was a pet project of Li Peng, known best for his role in the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was trained as an engineer in the great Soviet tradition of grand public works projects. In 1992, after a four year debate, the Chinese government approved a plan.

Construction of the Three Gorges Dam Project: Construction formally began in 1994. In November 1997, the Yangtze River was closed with loads of huge of rocks dropped by 32-ton dump trucks into the river. Both Chinese president Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng were on hand for the event. The river was diverted into a 2.3-mile-long canal, using a massive 580-meter-long, 140–meter-high temporary coffer dam so the Three Gorges dam could be built in the river bed.

In early June 2003, China blocked the Yangtze River and began the filling in what will be a 600-kilometer-long reservoir. Live television broadcasts showed water in the sluice being slowly cut off. Water rose at a rate of about a half centimeter every hour until mid June when the water reached an interim level of 135 meters above sea level, 100 meters above what it was before. and commercial ships began passing through the locks. As the water rose, the last hold holdouts gathered their possessions and Chinese medicine suppliers gathered snakes, scorpions, and insects scrambling in confusion as their homes were submerged. In August two 700-megawatt generators began operating.

The main wall of Three Gorges Dam was completed in May 2006, nine months ahead of schedule, and dam was declared finished. A ceremony was held to honor 100 workers who had died as of that time. The last cofferdam was blown up in June 2006, unleashing water into the hydroelectric facilities and allowing the main dam to hold back the full weight of the Yangtze River. The explosions, produced with 191 tons of dynamite, sent water shooting 30 meters into the air. Before the explosions the water was zapped with electricity to keep fish out of harm’s way.

There is still a lot of work to be done. Installation of the 26 generator turbines and other equipment is due to be completed in 2009, when the reservoir will reach its full level—175 meters above sea level, 140 meters higher than it was in 2002, and 40 meters higher than what it was in 2003, and be 660 kilometers long.. The reservoir is now known as Emerald Drop Lake.

Benefits of the Three Gorges Dam: Among the benefits of the Three Gorges Dam will be the creation of loads of electricity, protection for millions of people from floods, and the provision of waters for millions of acres of irrigated land. The Three Gorges Dam will control floods that have killed 300,000 people in this century alone; provide the annual energy produced by the burning of 50 million tons of coal a year; and create the world's largest water storage reservoir. In the forst half of 2007, it generated 23.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.

The dams and reservoirs will improve the navigability of the Yangtze River creating a 660-kilometer-long reservoir of calm, deep water; widen shipping lanes; and eliminate strong currents and obstacles such as rocks and sandbars. The Three Gorges Dam will have three passage locks and the dam. The dam at has have just one.

Beijing argues that Three Gorges Dam is desperately needed to bring jobs and an improved quality of life for tens of millions of people living the interior of China, which lags way behind the coastal areas in terms of economic development and prosperity. Many local people support the project because of the flood control and economic benefits it brings.

When it is completed 10,000 ton freighters will be able to come up the river, providing industry with access to cheap labor in central China and major river and sea trade routes. The reservoir is so large that it raises temperatures and affects humidity, wind patterns and agriculture in the area. This may help farmers by bringing more rainfall.

Problems with the Three Gorges Dam : Problems with the Three Gorges Dam include the flooding of some of the world's most scenic areas; the drowning of farmland, cities and towns, and relocation of 1.3 million people to higher ground. Critics also claim the river won’t flow fast enough to keep the turbines turning and dam itself will become inoperable after a few years as a result of silting.

Some environmentalists contend that the project could cost as much as $75 billion before it is finished and argue that Yangtze region would be served with a series of small dams on the tributaries that feed into the Yangtze River. They say as much energy could be supplied by the Yangtze region’s ample natural gas supplies. Others claim the dam benefits outsiders more than locals. More than 40 percent of the electricity generated by the dam will go to Shanghai and coastal areas.

Emerald Drop Lake is the name of the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam. It is seriously polluted by pesticides, fertilizers and sewage from passenger boats.

The dam is built on an earthquake zone. Were it to break waters would flood one of the world’s most populated areas. There have already been alarming reports of cracks in the dam and the use of substandard concrete and building ,materials to make it. See Earthquakes

Cities, Villages and Farms Under Three Gorges Dam: By estimates fertile land used to grow 40 percent of China’s grain and 70 percent if its rice will affected by the Three Gorges project. Beijing says that about 74,000 acres of farmland, including fertile land near the river, will be lost to the reservoir while 37,000 acres of new land will put under cultivation. Environmentalists say that 240,000 acres will be lost.

Thirteen major cities, 140 smaller cities and towns and 1,352 villages, 1,600 factories, and 700 schools will be submerged by the Three Gorges project. Wanxian is the largest victim. Two thirds of the city, including 8.5 square miles and 900 factories, will be submerged. In compensation, the new city of Wanxian will have a new railroad, a new highway linking it to Shanghai and a new mountain-top airport that can handle jumbo jets

Low-lying Yunyang has also been hit hard. More than 160,000 people from the town have had to move and countless numbers of buildings have been submerged already. Before the waters in reservoir began to rise areas that were submerged were stripped of anything that could be sold. Some places look like they had been bombed.

Thirteen replacement cities are currently being built along 370 miles of water ways affected by the dam. Many like New Yunyang are named after a city was submerged, New Zigui was built on a scenic promontory selected with tourism in mind. The Jiangdu Temple was moved there. (See Education, Health, Energy, Transportation –Energy and Water—Dams) Web Sites: Wikipedia Wikipedia

Three Gorges Dam Tourism

Tours are offered but only 1,000 visitors are allowed on the dam each day and they can only stay for 20 minutes after a very strict security check. The tours began in 2005 and usually held from July to September when a spectacular flood discharge is on display. The commentary by the guides is often very nationalistic with comments such as the project was completed with “wisdom and resolution of the Chinese people to harness rivers.” In a park are plastic rocks and sculptures of giant screwdrivers and electrical plugs.

A fine viewing platform was set up in the village of Zhongbao that offers splendid views of the dam. Unfortunately the $385,000 platform was deemed illegal and closed by the state.

Image Sources: Three Gorges map by Christine Yunn-Yu Sun from China Odyssey web site. Photographs of places from 1) CNTO (China National Tourist Organization; 2) Nolls China Web site; 3) Perrochon photo site; 4) Beifan.com; 5) tourist and government offices linked with the place shown; 6) Mongabey.com; 7) University of Washington, Purdue University, Ohio State University; 8) UNESCO; 9) Wikipedia; 10) Julie Chao photo site; 11) Xinhua and other news services via the Environmental News

Text Sources: CNTO, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

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© 2009 Jeffrey Hays