Water Margin
Chong Qing to Yichang Yangtze River, China
Reduced to Rubble |
Amongst this innocent ambience of timeless climatic whims, one or rather many things stood out. Stark in contrast to the dull monotone green and greys along the banks of the river. At consistent intervals and height, big red signs had been painted, marking the ominous predicted rise in the water level. Dripping the red paint of destruction on everything below. After an excursion the previous day to obtain goods at one of the riverside towns, an American woman observed to me when back on the prow, “Amongst the scatter, debris of grey soaked stone, a child’s doll half crushed yet holding true, wearing a red doll’s dress.”
The riverside town had been much bigger than the one we visited and had stretched further down the side of the bank, a large part of it below the dreaded water markers. And all that now remained, as we trudged through the scree of buildings, was flattened, demolished into rubble. A couple of what must have been multi-storied buildings dared hold out against the giant swing of mechanised bulldozers, in their death throws, losing the fight.
Me on the Chinese Only Barge |
The morning after seeing (barely) the great three gorges, the inhabitants of the ship all boarded smaller motorised barges and we set of like a brigade into the “lesser gorges” which fed into the great river. By some ridiculous, partly self inflicted, partly schemed, at first annoying, eventually hilarious fortune I ended up on a barge of purely Chinese tourists. The reasons why, I won’t divulge or the cacophony of mad events that preceded as I could go on forever and it would alleviate the ambiance I am trying to get across.
The “Lesser Gorges” |
It would be not only the local communities that suffered but also the miles of ancient ecosystems lost forever below the water margin.
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