Around midnight we went through the lock system associated with the Three Gorges Dam and then docked at a small town. There was a tour scheduled for the dam, but since it was raining and we were a little leery of wasting our time, we opted to skip the tour. Instead, we just rested and watched the groups disembark to the waiting buses. We were laughing that instead of walking the tourists on the sidewalk to the buses, they were carefully lead through a shopping area. As it turned out, the tour was a bust. The bad weather and mist obscured any view of the dam.
We cruised through the final gorge, Xiling. It was absolutely lovely and exactly what I envisioned our trip should have been. There was heavy, heavy fog, which made seeing the far bank difficult and made everything very magical.
After lunch, we were picked up by the local guide for Yichang for our trip to the airport. If I have to hear one more time the joke about the national bird of China being the crane, I shall start to scream and not stop. There must be a standard speech that all Chinese guides memorize and we have now heard it many, many times. Can you tell that I’m getting just a bit cranky?
As we were driving to the airport at Yichang, the fog/smog was getting thicker and thicker. When we reached the airport, one of our group asked the guide pointblank if any aircraft could land or take off in these conditions. The guide hastily assured us that it was no problem, dumped us at the security gate, and waved good-by.
Of course, it WAS a problem. Our airplane couldn’t land in Yichang, I guess, and I’m really guessing here. Other airlines seemed to get their planes in just fine, but ours couldn’t. I started making phone calls, since no one at the airport was very fluent in English. Apparently, our plane was forced to go to another airport. Maybe our airplane didn’t have the equipment for an instrument landing. I don’t know. Having no guide with us was a real disadvantage here and when you think of it, really, really stupid.
After four hours, without the weather looking much different than before, we finally had a plane and took off for Shanghai. We were all getting a little panicky about ever reaching Shanghai.
After we landed, we were too tired to care about dinner and just went to bed. Adventures in travel.
