The Far West nineteen days in China by Carrie Lynn King

My awareness had been growing, over the past few years, that the Chinese were building a great dam on the Yangtze river, a dam that when finished would flood or partially flood a region behind it called the Three Gorges. Of all the places in the world I want to see (which is almost everywhere), this one had a definite time limit.

Timing and/or money issues meant none of the few people I mentioned my idea to could come with me. I wanted to focus on sightseeing instead of worrying about food, shelter, and transportation, and I wanted to see as much as I could in a short time, so I asked a well-traveled coworker for tour group recommendations, and picked one that advertised small groups and relatively active people. Older people, like my coworker, but I preferred a recommendation from someone I knew to blindly picking a company.

My tour covered 1-20 September 2000, and we not only cruised up the river but visited Beijing, Xian, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Lhasa, and Hong Kong. In 20 days I took 47x36=1692 pictures. Don't worry, I'll only show you the better ones... >>

I originally intended this travel journal to be a feature of median strip, but (a) I didn't finish it before (b) the site kind of went dormant. So here it is, over on my own little domain. But in honor of the original intent, I've left in the median strip references on this page.