5-Day Yangtze River Cruise: Wuhan to Chongqing(1) – Getting There

June 2014 (by Pat)     Related Itinerary

INTRODUCTION

Back in February, a trip to China was not on the horizon. Our visas had expired and we no longer had business contacts there. Then, a Travelzoo email arrived. The offer was a seven-night trip to China, including a five day Yangtze River cruise, for $1000 including airfare, transfers, hotels, and meals. This was a “too good to pass up” deal. We couldn’t book the $1000 dates due to other plans, but we did pay $1100 each for a June 5 departure. It still seemed like a deal. The tour ended with a night in Beijing and I looked into delaying our return flight a few days, but the company wouldn’t agree to that without significant extra cost. We decided to do just the base seven-day trip.

Then, In April, we went to Korea and learned that some friends of ours were going to be in Xi’an from the 17^th to the 22^nd. This created interesting possibilities as we would already be in that general part of China and Xi’an is the location of the famous Terra-Cotta Warriors. We decided we would simply skip the return part of our package and meet our friends in Xi’an. But our cruise ended in Chongqing on the 12^th. What to do from the 12^th to the 17^th?

YK spent hours researching possibilities and devised a somewhat haphazard trip to various interesting locations in central China. It proved to be quite an adventure.

THE TRIP OVER

The cruise began in Wuhan on June 7. The agency booked us to Beijing on Air Canada, through Vancouver, leaving June 5. We would then catch a China Eastern flight to Wuhan and spend the night of the sixth in a hotel there. It didn’t work quite as planned.

In the last two hours of the flight to Beijing, we encountered some of the worst air turbulence I’ve ever experienced. The second meal service, lunch, was cancelled and the crew was confined to their jump seats.

When we landed, we learned that a series of thunderstorms had passed through Beijing, disrupting air traffic for several hours. Flights had not been able to leave, so there was no gate for us. We deplaned, in the rain, on the tarmac and were bused to the terminal.

After immigration and customs, we met a representative of the tour agency who was trying to assemble the group continuing to Wuhan. She asked us to wait 15 minutes. When an hour had passed, we decided to go to the domestic terminal ourselves so we could get our boarding passes and something to eat. This proved to be a mistake.

The terminal was a madhouse. I had forgotten, flights had been canceled or delayed and everyone was trying to find out what to do. Unlike us, most of the passengers, at least, spoke the language.

The Chinese concept of a line is somewhat fluid. Most places where long lines might occur have barricades or line markers to try to force people into a single file. The ribbon line markers at the ticket counters were set too far apart, somewhat defeating their purpose. Eventually, we got to the window, but could not get a boarding pass. We weren’t sure but thought it was considered too soon to check in. At that point I wanted to turn everything back to the tour group, but we hadn’t seen them enter the terminal.

YK eventually located the group by a group check-in window. Nothing was happening. Our flight hadn’t been canceled, but it wasn’t scheduled either. Apparently the plane we were supposed to take hadn’t been able to reach Beijing. We obviously weren’t going anywhere soon.

There were no seats in the check-in area, so everyone was sitting on the floor. At one point, I was so tired that I lay down and fell asleep on the floor. It had already been a long day.

Several hours later, we got our boarding passes and flew to Wuhan. We had left our house at 5AM Thursday LA time. We arrived at our hotel in Wuhan at 2AM Saturday local time. The bus was coming for us at 8:30.

— continue to part (2)