Yangtze River: an eye-opening adventure in China - Cruise of the Month - travel services offered by Pacific Bestours

Cruise Travel, March-April, 2002 by Jeri Jacobs

What a difference 20 years make! We first visited China in 1982, and now we were very excited to return and witness the progress the Chinese have made. It exceeded our expectations. The new skylines of Beijing and Shanghai were filled with huge skyscrapers; buses (some even air-conditioned) and automobiles almost equaled the number of bicycles and pedestrians on the streets. Shopping centers and hotels rivaling our most elegant ones were now bustling with business, and American fast-food restaurants--KFC, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, even Starbucks--were crowded.

Pacific Bestours handled all of our travel arrangements in China. Gene Feng, its manager, and Stella, our tour guide in Beijing, met us at the airport and delivered us to our beautiful hotel, the Peninsula. For the next two days, Stella took us all around Beijing, from the Great Wall to the Ming Tombs to a futang (Chinese for "water well," which now means a courtyard), where we entered a private home and met the family. While in Beijing, our group sampled many Chinese dishes, including Peking duck, intoxicated shrimps, and fried ice cream.

On our previous trip we missed Xian, so it was with great anticipation that we looked forward to viewing its renowned Army of Terracotta Warriors. Our guide, Lucy, was very knowledgeable and took great pleasure in showing us her town. This included the elegant Big Wild Goose Pagoda, one of China's oldest brick structures; the Tang Dynasty Museum, housing beautiful reproductions of murals of the Tang Dynasty; and the Provincial Museum of Xian, containing a wonderful collection of ancient Chinese artifacts and records of dynasties and civilizations in the Shannaxi region. The piece de resistance, of course, is the Army of Terracotta Warriors museum, a campus of several buildings housing more than 8,000 statues of soldiers, horses, and carriages, as well as restaurants and gift shops.

From Xian we flew to Chongqing, the eighth largest city in China, with a population of more than three million. Here we boarded our riverboat for a cruise on the Yangtze to see the three gorges and the Gezhouba Dam. Water is a major problem in China, and the dam is being built to provide electricity, regulate and supply water, and control flooding of the river. Once the project is completed in 2009, the Yangtze River will be control-flooded and all the towns below the 135-meter mark along the river's banks will be under water. We wanted to see the countryside before this flooding occurs.

Chongqing was representative of the old China--aggressive street vendors, dock areas where darkness covers a multitude of sins. Luckily for us, a guide met us at the airport and drove us to the dock area. We had to transport our bags to a funicular and then roll them on to the riverboat, the Victoria 1. This was quite a scene--several men tried to help transport our luggage in hope of earning a tip--and while getting help is necessary, even those who didn't help expected to be tipped.

Our cabin contained a king-size bed and small sitting area, plus a nice-size bathroom. Closet space was economical, and there was no place to plug in the lap-top computer. There are no elevators on the boat, so climbing stairs is a way of life. Our cabin was on the second floor, dining on the main floor, bar and lounge on the fourth floor, and the large outdoor decks on the third and fourth floors. We had a television that broadcast only one news channel, and that was in Chinese.

Our dining-room table, labeled "Mix & Mingle," consisted of passengers who were not with groups. Since most of the "M & M's" were American and British, we got along. Breakfast and lunch were buffets while dinner was served. Food was an enjoyable combination of continental/American dishes and Chinese cuisine.

Onboard, most of the cruise staff was, of course, Chinese. Many understood some English, but did not speak it. I found that knowing how to say "thank you" in Chinese was greatly appreciated by this hard-working crew. Our cruise director, a young American named Brian Himmelsteib, had been with the boat for six months. He was able to keep us apprised of world events during the cruise and gave an informative lecture on the dam and its probable effects on the country.

Also onboard were Dr. Fan, a Chinese medical doctor and our Tai Chi instructor; Simon Xia, our river guide; Nico Li, assistant cruise director; and Daniel Li, front desk supervisor. When we sailed through points of interest on our Yangtze cruise, Simon would give lectures chock full of information.

On our first full day on the river, we went to the "ghost city" of Feng Du, located on the northern bank of the Yangtze. The city got its name from the combination of its founders' names, Yin and Wang. To the Chinese, these names together sound like "King of Hell." We took a chairlift up to the beginning of the "ghost city" area and then climbed many stairs in our journey to the top. Along the way we passed the colorfully named "No Way Out Bridge," "River of Blood," "Ghost Torturing Pass," and "Tower of Last Glance Home." We saw the intriguing chambers of horrors, depictions of the Chinese idea of hell in various sections, each showing a different type of torture.