Wimp Day

This is a picture of the intrepid peeps who are

crossing the mud flats to The Steps.  It's pretty foggy, 

but if you look closely you can make out those 

who are climbing that Stairway to Heaven

Wednesday on the Yangzi Explorer


We traveled all night, mostly in pea soup fog, to reach Fengdu. We're now moored to the Yuantong Tourpontoon No. 1. The 30 to 50 meter possible change in the river depth means that there aren't any permanent docks attached to the river bottom. There are these big ole floating docks everywhere. First boat to arrive ties up directly to the pontoon boat, second boat rafts (ties up to the first boat) to first and so on. When people from the second or beyond boats want to go ashore, they walk through the other boats between them and the pontoon boat. Some of the gangplanks that are used from boat to boat look like some flotsam picked from the river.

An aside: as far as we can tell, there isn't much oversight in the realm of safety. Our safety drill on the boat was held on day two and boiled down to, "If something happens, the captain will just drive over to the riverbank for us to disembark." I was ever so
relieved that night at the Captain's reception to see for myself that he appeared not to have a drop of Italian blood in him! No one's really sure if the world's largest dam can withstand a major earthquake. We've decided it's just better not to think about it.

So back to Fengdu. It is called the Ghost City for something that happened in the
Eastern Han Dynasty. Flash forward to current time. Prior to the river rising, the
abandoned city of 60,000 took on the personality of a Ghost City. Shore excursions
today were either to visit the Ghost City Tour which visits some temples up on the
mountain and involved hundreds and hundreds of steps up and then down. Only one
intrepid soul was up for it. The other excursion is to a Relocation Village to get an idea
of how the rising river affected the relocatees.

We were all up for the Relocation tour until the fog lifted this morning and we realized
that the river is quite low here so we would have to cross the mud flats over a series
of temporary wooden walkways complete w/ street lights and boxwoods. No problem
with that. Jeesh, we got on an off those wooden pea pod boats yesterday, so how
hard to walk on a stationary boardwalk? Then the fog lifted a bit and we saw..... THE
STEPS. One has to climb at least 150 cement steps to reach the road and bus. Out of
44 people, 18 sucked it up and headed off the boat. Since I am typing this ON the boat,
I'll concede to Wimpdom. I'm saving my strength to learn how to play Mah Jong this
afternoon.

I'm going to send along a picture I took from our stateroom of the hundreds of people
from another boat or ferry behind us heading across the boardwalk and then up those
steps. Lemme tell ya, if you can't climb stairs without a railing don't come here. There

aren't many accommodations for disabled either. In fact you never see a disabled
Chinese person. Someone asked one of the Chinese guides and was told, "Oh, we take
very good care of them." Uh-oh. I'm thinking they're probably not living in a villa in Sun
City Far East.

Tonight is the Taste of China Farewell Dinner. The food on the Yangzi Explorer is
the best I've ever tasted on any ship. The executive chef is from Hong Kong so I'm
expecting a big show tonight. Plus the service. A band of delightful young women who
make it their business to learn all of our names and somehow pull out your chair for you
every time and heaven forbid that you should put your own napkin in your lap.

And have I mentioned the laundry service? I'm pretty sure it costs more to wash my
socks than I paid for them, but putting out that laundry bag before breakfast and finding
that wicker basket of ironed and folded clothes in the stateroom before lunch is indeed
priceless.

I'm going to need that 23-1/2 hours from Shang Hai to Atlanta to come back to the real
world.

But I'm not there yet so I think I'll meander over the the pearl shop in the Wu Deck and
see if anything calls my name. Jim has found a secret hidy-hole somewhere to finish
reading the last Dragon Tattoo book and will no doubt to reappear for lunch.