Cruising the Yangtze and the World’s Most Dangerous Hike

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The government has invited me to attend an expo in Wuhan, followed by a cruise up the Yangtze, now dammed in arguably the most ambitious engineering project ever undertaken. To stop the world’s third largest river, raise its banks to 175m, relocating an estimated 2 million people and creating the most powerful hydro-electric dam on the planet, it requires more than money and political will. It requires an ambition that the Chinese hope will slap the world awake. It’s a myth that you can see the Great Wall of China from space, but you will be able to see what has happened to the Yangtze. It has always been a political dream to dam the largest river in Asia, since early 1919, as a means to harness the power of the river, and also control its devastating floods that have killed thousands, displaced millions, and wrecked recurring economic havoc. Now that dream is a reality.

I flew into Wuhan, a conglomerate of cities, connected by bridges and illuminated by neon. Here I met an assortment of travel agents, travel writers, government handlers and members of the government. It is customary to toast with rice wine, also known as fire water, also known as rocket fuel. At the first of what would be many banquets, I crashed the head table and proceeded to toast each member of the provincial government, a docile young girl appearing at my arm to fill up my glass after each slug. With this amount of strong white firewater, my rocket ship was ready to reach the moon. The international contingent came from Italy, Germany, Canada, the US, England, Australia, and we the media became the news, covered by TV crews and photographers, serenaded by Hong Kong pop stars in Mandarin. One guy told me it would be the equivalent of being serenaded by Bryan Adams, Barbara Streisand and Britney Spears on the same stage. Whatever. Four buses, navigating some of the most horrific traffic conditions I’ve ever seen (you haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed an 18 wheeler screech to a halt and execute a three point turn in the middle of a busy national highway) shlepped us city to city, region to region, banquet to banquet. Dish after dish would arrive at the table, compliments delivered, toasts, glossy bags containing forests of hysterically mistranslated tourist literature, mostly in Mandarin and thus completely wasted. I ate bullfrog. All I can say is: Jeremiah was a friend of mine, so I chowed him. He tasted like chicken, as I knew he would.

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