China Guide
The Yangzi basin
Yichang
You might well end up spending a night at YICHANG, a transport terminus on the Yangzi; Yichang marks the start of routes north to Shennongjia, and is positioned on the rail line between Xi'an and Hunan. The recent blossoming of Yangzi tourism and the building of the Three Gorges Dam just upstream has got the place kicking again, though in Yichang itself you're limited to seeking out scattered remnants of the colonial era (for instance, the church just east off Yunji Lu) or taking in the animated evening river scenery, complete with moored water traffic and crowds flying kites, gorging themselves on shellfish at nearby street restaurants, or just cooling off with an ice cream.
Tours of the Three Gorges Dam
Price: ¥105
Address: 35km west of Yichang at Sandouping (bus #4 from Yichang train station, then bus #8; 90min)
The Three Gorges Dam is the world's most ambitious hydropower project, a 1983-metre-long, 185-metre-high wall creating an artificial lake extending back 670km through the Three Gorges to Chongqing. At the dam ticket office a perspex-roofed bus takes you on a rather under-whelming ninety-minute tour to a viewing platform overlooking the locks, ship-lift and the dam itself. As most of the dam is underwater, you may wonder why you came in the first place. If you're travelling on a Yangzi cruise boat, the dam may be included on your itinerary, or may be an optional extra, which can make for an easier visit.
Through the centuries, the Yangzi's unruly nature has been a source of trauma for China, and conquering the river's tendency to flood extravagantly once a decade or so has been the dream of many Chinese rulers. Investment in the project has been promoted on the back of the dam's hydroelectric potential – the eventual output of its 26 generators will be around ten percent of all of China's power needs – and the income that the region would receive from both using the generated power and selling it abroad. Dissenters say that the dam will probably do little to prevent flooding – which occurs along downstream tributaries as much as the Yangzi itself – and claim it would be more effective and cheaper to build a string of lesser dams along these other rivers. In addition, increased water levels through the Three Gorges have submerged dozens of communities and historical sites. Archeologists have frantically scrambled to excavate as much as possible, and some two million residents of the area have been relocated, a programme which has itself been costly and highly controversial; there have been clashes involving transmigrants resettling on other people's lands. Ecologically, the project is indefensible – Chongqing, one of China's most heavily industrial cities, pours its effluent directly into the new lake, while even the Chinese government admits that siltation will make the dam unusable within seventy years unless they come up with a solution.