Friday - Shennong tributary/Badong and Fengjie

All these areas above the Dam are completely changed by the reservoir. In most places it seems the water level is 60-90 meters higher than it was before 2003. So at each stop along the way, the buildings we see on the hillsides above the river/reservoir have all appeared in the last 20 years.

I wonder, when they started holding up the water and the flooding started, how many places the water went that they said "uh oh, didn't expect that".

We took a small ferry this morning up a tributary about 10 miles. Lots of steep rocky and forested slopes. Thousands of years ago, this area was inhabited by the Ba people, whose burial practice was to get the bodies as close to the heavens as possible. This was done through "hanging coffins" - suspending them in crevices in the rock. Because of the dam, most of the coffins are now underwater, but a handful are still visible.

While sailing up this remote stream, we saw a huge bridge perhaps 200 feet above the river, perhaps a mile long. The guide said it connected two large cities, but we didn't see any cars on it, and I had flashbacks to the Bridge to Nowhere scandal in Alaska a few years back. They definitely are proud of their ability to build lots of things quickly here.

We've started buying little whatzits here and there, all probably mass-produced in a factory around the corner. We've decided none of us is the best negotiator in the world, but Seth may be the worst. Twice now I've been bargaining for him to a price I know we can get, and he pipes up and says he'll be happy to pay their higher number. Shrug.