Guest Author - Taisha Turner

Tours on the Yangtze river are favorites of both Chinese natives and foreign visitors. The favorite portion of the trip is the Lesser Gorges tour. This Lesser Gorges tour allows the visitor to admire the canyon’s walls up close.

The tourist rides a boat through canyons with steep walls covered with green vegetation. Monkeys frolic in the treetops. Birds chirp while flying from tree to tree.

The ancient Ba ethnic group originally settled this area. Remnants of these people are everywhere. There are Ba coffins in the rock walls. Ancient calligraphy adorns the mountain walls. An old plank road hangs high.

The steep rock walls tower high above until they disappear into the misty clouds. The unseen peaks appear to touch the heavens.

Waterfalls cascade down the rock face. The powerful thunder of the rushing waters breaks the silence. Mist from the waterfalls envelopes the traveler enclosing her in this mystical world.

A tour of the Daning river involves the tourist boat being dragged upstream. At the head waters, the men release the boat for an exhilaraing downstream ride. The traveler shoots the rapids the entire trip back. Back at the starting point, the traveler returns to the cruise ship.

In 2009, the Three Gorges Dam will flood this area when the hydroelectric operations start in full. If you travel to China before then, take this trip. Everything will not exist any longer after 2009.

Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze's Three Gorges
I recommend this book to all readers. It is an excellent book on this beautiful area which we will lose forever. We are fortunate to live in a time of print media and photography. The author's words and photographs preserves Three Gorges not only for us, but for future generations. It is a great book to add to the family library. Your descendents will thank you.

More than 1 billion people speak Mandarin Chinese, making it the most widely spoken language in the world.

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