Guided By Strangers

On Saturday, July 25, we gave ourselves over to a series of strangers. We arranged at our hostel in Wuhan for a Yangtse River Cruise. We knew we would be transfered by bus to the cruise 'ship' via the Three Gorges Dam and that we would have a guide. The 'a guide' turned into a 'series of strangers' as the day progressed. Guide #1 arrived at the hostel around 7 am. He led us to the street, hailed a cab and took us to Bus #1. We were turned over to Guide #2.

We boarded the Bus #1 just in front of the man with the bamboo pole and 2 giant bags of some chemical. Guide #2 did not come with us. We rode for one hour to where we were to catch the bus to the Dam. Here we were met by Guide # 3.

She took us to the ticket office where we were told to wait. As we waited we watched the entire office staff eat 'take out' Chinese. As we seemed destined to be there for a while Andy went out and bought us some black vacum packed eggs. They were delicious. Finally Guide #4 announced himself. We boarded Bus #2 and spent the next hour going from location to location picking up Chinese tourists. When the bus was finally full we began our four hour journey to the Three Gorges Dam. The entire trip was narrated in detail in Chinese...

The ride actually went fast. I was listening to an audio book, The Golden Mountain, that I 'borrowed' from the library. The book appropriately followed several generations of a Chinese/American family.

When we arrived at the Dam we transfered to Dam Park Buses #3, #4, & #5, as we were shuttled around the Dam Park. The sights were awesome. At the end of the Dam tour we boarded Bus #6 and were dropped off at a very fancy hotel. We were told that Guide #5 would be along soon to take us to the boat. Oh, I mean cruise ship...

This was the first time Andy & I began to sweat! Every other hand-over that day took place in a sketchy location. This was too nice. It couldn't be right. Also, every guide told us a different departure time for the boat. So we had no idea if we would make it. The worst was we would check into the fancy hotel and deal with it all in the morning.

Finally guide #5 and bus #7 arrived! We hopped aboard and rode about a half and hour to the dock. Here we were met by Guide #6 who stayed with us throughout the river trip.

Traveling like this worked as we were the only westerners traveling on the Chinese tours that day. As Andy said over and over is was a great Dam day!