The Yangtze Gorges

Advantages: Unique, fascinating, occasionally beautiful
Disadvantages: Disappearing as you read this

In the grey murk of a March morning, the city of Chongqing viewed from the riverbed is not a pretty sight. Even its inhabitants do not pretend Chongqing is a pretty sight. Rather, they take a perverse pride in its grimness, in common with the denizens of grim cities everywhere. Standing on the upper deck of the cruiseship Victoria 1, my wife and I watch the last passengers arrive. This early in the year the river is low. Perhaps fifty metres of mud, ...
...ship's mooring from the quay. Raggedly-clad porters ("stick-soldiers" as they are known, from the sticks they use to sling loads across their shoulders) vie for hire, surrounding the tourists as they emerge from buses or taxis, seizing the baggage and shuffling with their burdens across the boards. A band consisting of half a dozen teenage girls in red uniforms, which had piped arrivals up the gangplank half an hour earlier, has fallen silent. Now, ... Read review

Advantages: Knowledge Culture Adventure
Disadvantages: Fog

...Jules Verne tourists climbed off the coach that had taken them from the city of Shanghai to the River Port of Zhenjang on the Yangtze to board their cruise ship the MV Victoria Rose and their eight night journey upstream along the Yangtze River in China ending at the river city of Chongqing. We shouldn't have been that weary. Six intriguing days and nights spent in Beijing and finally Shanghai had been fascinating. Our minds were full of the exciting ...
...three hours from Shanghai to the River Port. The fact that China is under construction meant that the motorway from Shanghai to the River Port was still being built as we drove on it, resulting in the journey taking nine hours. The road was so rough that we spent the entire time either hitting the roof of the coach with our heads or jarring our spines on the seats. All of us were dreaming of a relaxing cruise with the highlights being our visit to ... Read review

Advantages: Relaxing, beautiful and cheap
Disadvantages: Getting up at 5am every day

...English in Chongqing, China. At the beginning of this month, the Chinese had a week’s holiday for National Day – the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (this year is the 55th anniversary). I spent most of my National Day holiday on the Yangtze River. Some fellow British teachers came to Chongqing from around the country and on Sunday evening ten of us boarded a big boat which would take us down the river to the town of ...
...Chongqing is the starting place of all Yangtze River cruises (or of course the end if you go upriver). This is because it’s where the Jialing River meets the Yangtze to increase its size, and it’s also not far from the start of the famous Three Gorges. This seems to be Chongqing’s main (only?) selling point as far as tourism goes, and assures that this otherwise dreary mass of concrete constructions makes its way into most China guides and tours. ... Read review