May 25, 2007 12:26
I woke up at 8 am this morning, only to discover that there were two more hours left to the train ride. The last two hours sucked the most. Too bad I couldn't sleep through them!
When we got to Yichang we walked down the road to the Yangzi River, where we tried to find a bus that would take us to the Three Gorges Dam. We ended up paying 140元 for a bus that would take us there and back.
It turns out that we accidentally signed up for a dam(n) tour group, and I'm still not certain whether or not it was a good mistake or a bad one. It wasn't the type of tour group where you get a dayou holding a flag, leading you around, rushing you past interesting things, and stopping you to buy stuff. But it was interesting and Chinese all the same.
First we went to a little park that had a good view of the dam from the front, then we went to another park that was raised above the damn, then we went to another park next to the dam, and finally another park below the dam. So basically you got to take all kinds of photos of the dam from different vantage points. It kind of sucked, especially because they wouldn't let you ON the dam.
After the dam we went to the bus station to see if we could get a night bus out to Wulingyuan, but it was not to be. So we went to find a budget hotel that was recommended by the Lonely Planet. We walked through a long tunnel that runs under the train station, only to discover that we didn't need to. So we took a taxi back through the tunnel to get to our hotel.
The hotel, aptly named the Railroad Hotel, is right next to the train tracks. Our room literally overlooks the train platform that we came in this morning; you could jump out the window and sneak onto a train.
The window doesn't close, so it is a bit loud.
china rocks your socks,
travel