Travel Blogs / 2007: China

View from The Bund, the main walk along the river. This view was a ricepaddy when I was here in 1978.

Our guide was very competent and spoke good English.

Bob and Barb enjoyed strolling on The Bund.

Here I am trying to line up a shot at The Bund.

Jim and Sandy has a good time. The buildings in the background are Western commercial buildings from the 1930's.

This scam artist was arrested right after I took this picture.

Our first inroduction to Chinese traffic. Rules are at best advisory!

This bus took us everywhere in Shanghai

Our first visit was to the Jade Buda Temple,

Many locals prayed to the Jade Buda.

Our next stop was at a local music school. The students were fantastic.

We had to make an obligatory factory tour of a place where they made expensive silks for tourists. No Chineese shopped here.

The factory workers were quite skilled. Everything was done by hand.

A very old teahouse was our next stop.

The teahouse was surounded by shops attracting locals as well as tourists.

There were many uniformed school kids there.

Restaurant workers on break.

The gardening was spectacular.

There were beggars everywhere, but they were not too agressive.

Our ship, the Princes Sheena was built for foreign tourists. Ships for locals had dormitories and bunk beds in place of cabins.

We passes many gray, depressing citied like this.

Gloria got a massage at one of our stops.

Here we have just entered the locks by The Three Gorges Dam. Note how tightly we are packed in.

The Cruise Director spoke fluent English.

An old passageway carved into the mountain.

A local commuter ferry.

Fishing

This appartment building was a showcase for the effort to house all the millions on people displaced by the dam.

They used to sit in their back yards, now they have the asphalt jungle.

All the markets we saw were busy and well stocked.

A trip up this river in small boats pulled by ropes manned by local farmers (?) was a special treat.

The first step of the journey was motorized.

Our captain was scary.

This is hard work. In the olden days these men were naked while they worked

This was hard work.

TGhe ride back to our ship was a little easier.