WUHAN - YICHANG

We flew from Beijing to Wuhan, the fifth largest city in China and capital of Hubei province. Our guide, Wuhao (who went by Ivan) was a young man who was clearly excited about China's growth and modernization. Wuhan is an exploding metropolis on the Yangtze River that just 10 years ago was a small village. He took us to the Hubei Provincial Museum where we saw bronze Chime Bells and stone slabs used as musical instruments. The bells are hung from the 'handles' and the stones are hung with a cord strung through a hole in the stone. All are played by being struck with various sized mallets.

WUHAN PHOTOS HERE

We left Wuhan after lunch for a four hour bus ride to Yichang where we would board our boat for the Yangtze River cruise. Wuhan is surrounded by farm land, which we could see as we were flying in. All of China's farmland is still held by individual families and owned by the government. The size of the plot a family has is determined by the size of their family. On most of the plot they grow a single crop for selling to the commodity buyers and they keep a small portion for growing their own food (and to sell what ever is extra.) Farmers around Wuhan grow rice and cotton and have small ponds for farmed fish or freshwater eels. What is so striking about China is its contrasts. In this area there is a large modern city and just on the edge of town are farms where the land is still plowed with water buffalo and the rice is harvested by hand.

BUS RIDE PHOTOS HERE