Tom LOVES the water. One of his dreams is to sail around the world. He sailed for a couple of summers in Cleveland and is hoping to figure out a way to get back on the water in Seattle. He was in heaven on the cruise boat. He awoke early each morning for Tai chi lessons, and enjoyed laying on his bed with his kindle, the door open and the sounds of the water rushing by and the breeze blowing in.

The Three Gorge Dam heightened the level of the water by up to 175 feet. When we were crusing it was around 75 feet higher than its natural level. You can imagine how imposing these hills would have felt if you added another 70 feet to them! Before this area of the river was narrow and fast moving. Now the whole river is wide and placid. Still, the steep sides are majestic in a way photos can not capture.

By far our favorite part of the cruise was the expidition to the Shennong stream. We transferred to a small ferry boat and took a small tributary of the Yangtze. The water here was clearer, and the countryside alongside much more rural than we had seen on the Yangze. Finally, I got a chance to see small wooden boats and agricultural villages. We saw a hanging coffin, and old tradition of the Tujia people where in order to assure that their deceased received a good place in heaven, would somehow place their coffins in crevices in the rock high up above the water. It's still unknown how they would have managed such a difficult task. We saw golden monkeys and mountain goats. After a beautiful ferry ride we all grouped onto small wooden boats and were rowed down an even narrower part of the stream. Five rowers were used for each boat. This group of rowers climb down two hours from their high mountain village to the river where they row tourists for one hour before rowing back and climbing once again!

They also demonstrated the “tracking” process. Before the building of the Three Gorge Dam, there were sections of the river where men would pull the boats down the river. Naked and holding long cords they would pull, from the water when it was shallow, and alongside the cliff face when it was deep. It was remarkable to think that only a few decades ago men were doing work much as you see in the open scene of the movie Les Miserables, as their livelihood.

Our tour guide was a sweet Tujia girl. She smiled sweetly and sang us one of the boatmen's songs as the men rowed. I talked to her for a while and discovered that her family lives high up in the hills. That her mother farms, while her Dad works in the city. (A typical arrangement in China.) Because she is part of a minority group her family was allowed two children, and so she has a younger brother. It was wild to see and think about the results of the single child policy. I had never realized that generations of single child homes would mean no cousins, and no aunts and uncles. Because I'd always assumed the one child policy was anti-family, I was actually surprised at how much “family” I saw in China. There were lots of billboards demonstrating the ideal family two loving parents and their one child. Just as the perfect American family has become two parents with their two children, one girl, one boy. The Chinese seem pretty content with their ideal Chinese mold. I saw plenty of preggers, and lots of babies. (Interestingly, children are held much more often then they are strolled about.) Also, while we're on the topic of babies. . . potty training is a bit different in china. It looks more like this:

One of the things I enjoyed most about our cruise was meeting the fellow cruise members. There were couples from Switzerland, England, Australia, and the US. We got the closest with those we were assigned to dine with: Gerrit and Analise, from South Africa; Carlos and Melissa from Carthagna (both Spain and Colombia ironically.) who now live in Saudi Arabia; and John and Paula, cruise friends from Australia. They were intelligent and friendly, and their world awareness astounded me. For example, when Tom mentioned he was friends with the grandson of one of the sherpas that first summitted Everest, two of them said, “Oh, X!” (Who just knows the name of the sherpa who helped the first man summit Everest?) Their knowledge of history, world events, art, music, and geography was impressive. Needless to say, I felt very ignorant. I suppose I should cut myself some slack, as I'm half their age- if not a third. Meeting them, I determined once again, to continue educating myself, to make learning a lifestyle.

I was particularly impressed by Gerritt and Analise. They were in China to run the Great Wall marathon. (She the half, he the full.) They both took up running in the past 5-10 years. What I loved about them was that they still seemed like college sweethearts. They spoke fondly of the choral numbers they had sang together over the years, (they'd met in choir and have continued to sing in choirs ever since), and the Met live operas they love to attend together. They spoke with pride about their two daughters. They talked about their running. You just got a sense that “they” were still a strong unit, decidely so. It's rare to see a couple who have been together so long, still have the sparkle and love for one another's company. Tom and I want to be like that!

Most of the people on the cruise had traveled widely. When I asked John where his next trip was going to be he said, “The World!” When we asked Paula her favorite locations she said, “Hmmm. Antarctica was something special. And I really loved Africa!” The gentleman from Switzerland started backpacking Asia as a young man, now as a much older man he's continued to travel extensively, though in a slightly different fashion. I felt slightly out of place, until I'd shock myself when out of my mouth would come something like: “Yes, when we were in Southern France we took a cooking class. . .” or “It's fun to compare these with the locks in Panama.” Here I was, the youngest cruise member and I had several countries to my name. Travel, something I didn't even dream about as a child, has become a reality for me. It still surprises me.