China: Three Gorges Dam: Visitor Center: March 2016

Per last post, we went through the lock gates of the Three Gorges Dam at night. From there we traveled a short ways down the river to a port city, and I cannot remember the name of said city. The next morning we were bused over to the dam visitor center and observation area. To get to the buses we wandered through a market near the docks lined with more “Hello People” trying to sell us things. Also, one of the things that I loved about China was the fact that there are beautiful buildings in seemingly random places.  

 

I did not try this street food.

Driving up to the dam area was fairly uneventful although we did have to cross a massive bridge over the Yangtze River. The best part of the drive was crossing over the bridge that let us view the lock gates from above. One thing that I did not mention last post is that this is a two channel lock system that allows ships to move both up and down river at the same time. This saves time as the ships don’t have to wait for the channel to clear of ships going up river before being able to move down. Although each side is shut down for one month out of the year for maintenance.

The dam visitor center is located on the top of a fairly tall and steep hill. For easy access to the top, escalators were installed. The side of the hill is covered in cherry blossom trees and their blooms vary from bright to palest pink. The first thing our guide tells us before we get on the escalators is don’t turn around, face forward. What do I promptly do? Turn around to take pictures.

 

The visitor center sits in a odd shaped portion of land between the dam and the locks. From one side you can see the locks and on the other side the dam itself and the ship elevator. Yes, you read that right; for smaller ships the Three Gorges Dam has a ship elevator. They were still working on it when we were there and it was not yet operational. The overlook area has this great tower you can climb that offers a fantastic view all around. 

 

A really neat feature of the visitor area was a rock in the shape of a tetrahedron. Tetrahedrons were used to stop the flow of water while they were working on building the dam. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of this giant rock but if you pictures of the visitor observation area its giant fountain in the middle of it. But for whatever reason I did take a picture of the sign in front of it.  

From the overlook area we made our way closer to the dam where we were able to stop and check out a scale model of the Three Gorges Dam and lock channels. I really love this model. It fascinated me.

We were able to get fairly close to the dam itself and it is massive close up. 

I hope that you enjoyed this post and all the pictures. Hope I didn’t overload you. Happy Wednesday and have a great rest of your week!