Yangtze River
" ... and yet, there is only one great thing; the only thing. To live to see, in huts and on journeys, the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world." Inuit song

At Chongqing we boarded the double-Decker President Cruise the night before sailing ...
I was truly looking forward to three most comfortable decadent days and nights since my arrival in China - one month before --- mainly to unwind and to see the famous Yangtze gorges we would pass through ... I wasn't disappointed --The two decker-cruise gently sailed through the tranquil waters and I was in heaven!

The boat passed through the gorges at a leisurely pace, passing through a gentle landscape dotted with ---

... pagodas and temples

The landscape we travelled through might as well have been created by Monet himself ...

... the gorges described a poetic world of mist softly shrouding perpendicular cliffs ...

... on the banks you could see little villages nestling on terraces ...

... the river waters, channeled more narrowly between gorges ...

... to protect anchored sailboats from the north wind ...

--- 'tis a scenery that is so familiar to us from the works of Chinese landscape artists.

-- a young boy mesmerized by the sheer beauty of ...

... the landscape

... the dense mountains with they shaggy carpet of trees ...

... the broad river with sampans below -- all so familiar to him.

Locals welcoming foreigners with their goods ...

... true relaxation ...

There was an interlude as we made our way through the locks of the Gezhouba Dam ...

... an enourmous project designed to harness ...

... the electrical energy potential of the Yangtze ...