5-Day Yangtze River Cruise: Wuhan to Chongqing(2) – The Cruise

June 2014 (by Pat)     Related Itinerary    continuing from part (1)

WUHAN

We were up early anyway. We had breakfast at the hotel and then went looking for a railway ticket office we knew to be nearby. According to the hotel clerk, it opened at 8. We explored the area for a while and came to the ticket office at 8. There was a woman waiting there, so we knew we had the time more or less right. Nonetheless, by 8:15, the office had still not opened and we had to head back to the hotel to catch our bus. We would have to get our train tickets for the post-cruise trip in Chongqing.

Wuhan is a city of 10 million and is, I believe, the largest city in central China. A local tour guide talked about the city as the bus took us to the Wuhan museum, which was big and modern and boring.

After an hour or so, we were taken to lunch and then to our ship.

THE YANGTZE RIVER

The Yangtze is the third longest river in the world. The Nile and the Amazon, however, flow for much of their length through uninhabited areas. The Yangtze River Valley, on the other hand, is home to over 350 million people, one-third of China’s population. It has long been responsible for periodic devastating floods and flood control was of the three reasons given for the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

THE THREE GORGES DAM

The dam was first proposed by Sun Yat Sen at the turn of the twentieth century. It was completed in 2012 and is the largest hydroelectric facility in the world. The construction of the dam was quite controversial as it resulted in the flooding of many villages and potential historical archeological sites. More than one million people were relocated.

The ship locks:

THE CRUISE

The cruise was upstream from Wuhan to Chongqing. It was as promised, but a bit odd. It was sort of like an imitation cruise, the Chinese idea of what a cruise should be. There was the captain’s champagne reception. The captain was a tiny man who had been sailing the Yangtze for over 30 years and seemed puzzled that he now had passengers. There was a “specialty restaurant” offering, for $50, a two course “western style” meal. I don’t know of anyone who tried it. There was entertainment. One night the crew performed. Another night, theoretically, the passengers were to perform, but only one act volunteered.

The room was quite comfortable with a balcony. The food was buffet style and not particularly good. YK commented that for once we wouldn’t have to worry about overeating on a cruise.

We had a “shore excursion each of the four full days of the cruise. We toured Youyang, a city of 5 million, took small boats up the “Goddess Stream,” a small tributary, toured the Three Gorges Dam and visited a 12 story wooden pagoda. We stood on deck as the ship entered the first of the five locks used to move ships between the upstream and downstream water levels.

The Goddess Stream:

There was beautiful scenery, especially when sailing through the gorges. It was always somewhat foggy, however, a condition common to the Yangtze River Valley. This condition persisted for most of the trip, even after leaving the river proper.

The Shibaozhai Pagoda:

On the last night, as our tour guide Maggie was explaining the logistics of our 8AM flight from Chongqing to Beijing, we took her aside and told her that we would not be going back to Beijing but would stay in central China. When she realized we were staying in Chongqing, she invited us to join the Chongqing tour and lunch that another group was going on the next morning. It was very nice of her.

 The Local Guides:

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