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| All my life, I had read "The Story About Ping", of a little duck in China, and his experiences on the
 Yangtze River.
 Now, finally, we are having the opportunity to spend a full week, floating down the river, from Chongqing to Shanghai.
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Whenever we disembarked the ship, we had to wear our dog-tags, of course.      The Yangtze is the third longest river in the world, after the Nile and the Amazon; it is certainly one of the world's most polluted rivers, too.                                                     
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| There is lots of industry, along the way. | 
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| And plenty of barges, trransporting coal and sand. | 
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| ....and trucks. | 
Daily shore excursions were included in the cruise package:
This was another one of those places with the really scary  Taoist gods.  There was a whole section at this site, devoted to AWFUL ways to torture and kill people.....too much!
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| I did like this serpent-dragon creature. | 
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| The Three Gorges  had dramatic scenery, though always hazy. | 
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| Many new bridges have been built across the river.....The Chinese are HUGE on transportation projects. 
 
 
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| One excursion involved taking this boat up a tributary of the Yangtze. | 
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| Chris got to DRIVE the boat! | 
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| We came upon cliff-side trails. | 
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| If you look carefully, you can see an ancient coffin, set up into this cliff-side cave. | 
We had a ride on a Sampan, up an even smaller tributary.
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| Chris had fun with the traditional boatman's costume. | 
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| The kind of house-boat on which the family lived in "The Story About Ping" | 
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| The wonderful people with whom we shared our Cruise Ship Table. | 
front row:  Jacqes and Anna (from France), Rena (from Japan)
middle row:  our two wonderful servers,  a couple from Germany, Rena's mother (Yaeko), Paula 
back row:  Kevin and Andi Crockford, Chris
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| Our wonderful servers, who doubled as musicians and dancers in the nightly on-board shows! | 
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| Beautiful, silk Qi Pao dresses......similar to the one I had custom-made for Derek's and Jared's weddings | 
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| Fashions of Tibet | 
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| Each show had narration about the costumes and customs of the 56 ethnic groups of China. | 
We had an OUTSTANDING time on the Victoria Prince, on our seven-day Yangtze River Cruise.....incredible friendships, food, entertainment, and service.  
 
This was such a great trip.
ReplyDeleteThe Ol Yangtze
The Ol Yangtze
Never a better trip than the Ol Yangtze.
Hope you don't mind us stealing a couple of photos from you. They're fantastic.