Three Gorges -- Gorgeous!

Up at 5:30 so I could get a shower in before heading to the bar to look at the entrance of the Three Gorges on the Yangtze.  The Gorges are enormous rock formations on either side of the banks.  They form a channel that, until the dam was built, was too shallow to bring boats through.  There used to be men with ropes on their backs dragging the ships though the channels.  We disembarked at Wushan and got on a smaller ferry type boat to take us through the channel.  There are three main areas and the Chinese have named them by the way they look.  The Wu gorge is the gorge of witches, Xiling Gorge is the longest and Qutang Gorge is the shortest.  There is also a Goddess Peak that, according to Chris, looked like a rock.  It took about 3 hours to go up and back.  It was very foggy and misty, so it was difficult to see further ahead, but it was still very impressive.  And there were no stairs to climb!
Back on the ship, the river guide, Leo, offered to teach Chris and me Mahjong, for a small service change (for both of us, $20).  It’s pretty complicated, more like a card game than dominoes, although you use tiles.  It is unlucky for Chinese not to play for money, but since we were learning, it was OK.  I enjoyed learning – I think I might play on line to get better.  Chris did not have a good time, but she hung in there with me.  Did I mention we were drinking Tequila Sunrises? (It was the special drink of the day.)
We are now going through the locks at the Three Gorges Dam Project, which we will visit tomorrow.  It will take about 3 hours to go through all the locks, so most of night will be spent doing that.  We are accompanied by two other cruise ships and we are very close together, so, after waving at two guys in pajamas on the boat next to us from our cabin window, we decided we better close the curtains.