Here we are in the "Lesser Three Gorges" on a sandbar. To get here you leave your cruise on a side trip, go by bus then by small passenger water craft that at this stage of annual flood required poling along with the motor to get up through the rapids. It was a beautiful side trip including the chance to see the pairs of holes in the sheer cliffs where posts were driven to support a cantilevered road. The power of forced labor, when applied in great numbers and time, is always mind-numbing.

"Cruise the Three Gorges before the Dam floods them and they are lost forever!!" The one thing that struck me about the sentence above, was that the Three Gorges are 1,500 meters deep and the water will come up about 175 meters. A human will be hard pressed to notice the difference other than the water will be more calm and navigable. Oh well! Good Advertising scam to get those tourist dollars....