Postcards from China - Yangtze River

Bridges over the Yangtze River. For about the last 10 years, China has been engaged in massive infrastructure building  and most of these were rather new.

As part of our Imperial Jewels of China trip, my husband and I traveled on the Yangtze River on a "longboat" - The Viking Century Emerald. The trip started in Wuhan and five days later we departed the ship in Chongquig.  The Yangtze is the third largest river in the world and 34% of China's population lives long the river.

Over boat, The Viking Century Emerald, carried 260 passengers. 

We saw a lot of river traffic but almost all of it was commercial and most of what we saw were barges of various sizes.

The scenery along the way, particularly after we had passed the huge Three Dam Gorge (largest hydroelectric plant in the world) was stunning. We were told that over 4000 small villages had been flooded when the dam opened in 2009.

Ancient structures juxtaposed new construction throughout the area - we were amazed at the number of high-rise buildings throughout our journey. We were told that rural folks were the new inhabitants of these huge structures but many looked incomplete and empty.

This was a truly amazing trip and I hope these photos begin to describe it!