Blogs from Yangtze River, China, Asia
WAAAY Down Upon the Yangtze River...
Published: April 8th 2012Asia » China » Yangtze River » Shennong Stream
April 7th 2012
SORRY, but this is going to be an incredibly long-winded blog (everything about China is out-sized, even our blog), so if you like, just skim the titles and if you see something that catches your fancy, READ ON … and skip the parts that don't grab you (of course, it's ALL incredibly fascinating!). Big Brother in China might be watching over you … but if you skip some passages, we're NOT! CRUISING the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) from Three Gorges Dam A quick hop of a flight west from Shanghai to Wuhan on good ole China Eastern Air (they provide meals on flights of 1.5 hrs …gotta love 'em!) and another 4.5 hours (285k) by bus on a very new expressway across beautifully scenic farm country to the town (it's a town because it ONLY has 4.5 ... read more
March 21st 2012
hey it is Parker Today we went for breakfast then went to the Fengdu ghost town. it was very big. We traveled in a group so we did not get lost.I thoughr it was very fun. There were lots of budlings and while we where there I counted the steps, there where 676 going up. After were came back to the boat and relaxed because it was very warm out today! About a half an hour later we had lunch, we went outside to see Fuling where Payton stayed the first 13 months of her life. it was very exciting to see what a diffrent place it was. Payton really liked seeing the ghost statues! Payton really liked seeing Fengdu as well. i thought it looked pretty cool too! There where sights like mountins,tall buildings, a ... read more
March 9th 2012
I finally got to do one of the top things on my China To Do List (it really does exist, and will sadly not be satisfied this trip due to time constraints): Go on a river cruise up the Yangtze River to see the Three Gorges. To get to the cruise, we took a sleeper train to Chongqing (not the first sleeper train, and not the last). It is the largest municipality in the world with 29 million people (almost the size of my home country, Canada) but is not a destination that has much to offer sightseeing-wise, other than a never-ending sea of high-rises. After arriving, we had five hours to kill, so we went to a square where the bus that would take us to the boat was to pick us up. We quickly ... read more
October 23rd 2011
Picking the Cruise: There are no less than a dozen different cruise operated from different companies and fleets. But there are only normally two routes for the YangTze River Cruise in China - Go down stream from Chong Qing 重慶 to Yi Chang 宜昌 (4 days 3 nigths) or up stream from Yi Chang to Chong Qing (5 days 4 nights). Although a shorter trip, sometimes it is sligthly more expensive for the download cruise from Chong Qing. There is extra preimium to pay for non China residents (including Hong Kong and Macau). I took the upstream one on board of the Cruise Ship (YangTze Golden One 長江黃金1號). It costs about 3,200RMB for a single person for a double occupancy deluxe room with balcony. Since I travelled alone, I have to pay about 80% more for ... read more
#134 Teaching at Taizhou Teachers College, China (Yangtze River Cruise from Yinchang to Chongqing, Summer 2011)
Published: September 7th 2011Asia » China » Yangtze River
September 11th 2011
Before the 20th Century, rugged mountains virtually isolated Sichuan Province from eastern China, and it was only a 400 mile stretch of the Yangtzi River (Chang Jiang in Chinese), linking the huge city of Chongqing with the city of Yichang in Hubei Province that opened Sichuan and the West to eastern China. The journey was a perilous one, as the Yangtzi River came tearing through the "sheer-sided" Three Gorges. The 3 Gorges "were" marvellous, though dangerous. Boats could only make it upstream with the help of "trackers". These were teams of low-paid men, who were harnessed together, and pulled boats, inch by inch, through the torrents of the Gorge. Paths cut into the banks of the Yangtze made the work somewhat easier and a little less hazardous. Some of them are still visible above the "new" ... read more
September 7th 2011
Wednesday 7 ============ I had a flight booked for 5:20PM to Chongqiang, and didn’t have much to do in the day. I chatted to 3 Chinese girls and a guy staying in the hostel. They were very friendly. At one point they went and got a whole heap of food and invited me to join them. The airport is 30km out of town. Flight was an hour late. I arrived in Chongqing 7:30, then had an ‘interesting’ ride into town. Firstly the roads looked positively first world. Big wide motorways, long tunnels, everything clean. But the taxi driver was terrible, blowing his horn, cutting people off etc. He wasn’t sure of the way to the hostel, fortunately I had the number, and he rang them to get directions. In the end I spotted the hostel first. ... read more
Princess Elaine of Switzerland...and Mildred of Chongqing
Published: August 31st 2011Asia » China » Yangtze River
August 29th 2011
We actually made it up for sunrise this morning as we knew when it would be. We were out on the deck at 6am to watch it and we stayed there for an hour and a half before being called to breakfast. The views in the morning we truly stunning and it seems as if the river just gets more beautiful the further along you go. The water is getting clearer and the peaks to either side of us are breathtaking (James - think Milford Sound but bigger and going through it for three days). Breakfast was again a Western style which we loved. We spent the rest of the morning on deck, sunbathing, reading, dosing, taking pictures and enjoying the gorgeous scenery. At around 7.30am we went through the first of three Gorges and it ... read more
August 28th 2011
Liz and I set our alarm for 5am so as we could be up for sunrise on the boat. When the alarm sounded we peaked out of the window to see nothing but darkness. We fell back to sleep and the next thing we knew it was the 6am wake up call for breakfast and we had missed sunrise. We quickly got ready for the day and headed to the dining room where to our surprise a table had been reserved for us and our table had bacon, eggs, omlettes and toast laid out for us instead of the traditional Chinese fare. We were overjoyed with this and it was great to eat some bacon and eggs! As soon as breakfast was finished (they only serve food in half hour slots, so if you miss it ... read more
April 26th 2011
April 22nd-24th, 2011 The first day was spent mostly traveling. We had to be up early at jumped on a public bus from 8am to 5pm. The bus did make two stops to use the squatters, but one was so bad people were coming out sick, so I decided to hold it. There was one interesting Chinese lady on the bus with us that picked up live chickens in the first city and was bringing them back to her home. First she tried to put them under the bus with our luggage, but since they were not caged they stopped her and she had to keep them near the bus driver up front. Not something you see often in America. The cruise was a three day trip through the three gorges of the Yangtze River ending ... read more
November 10th 2010
I was awake before the birds this morning. We had a later breakfast as our shore excursion today was not until the afternoon. I planned to sit on my balcony taking some great pictures as the world went by but it was too misty (apparently this is normal this time of year). I still sat on the balcony anyway and watched the world went by. We docked and hopped off the boat at Fengdu - 'the City of Ghosts'. This is where heaven and hell are apparently located. This was very touristy and not like the other places we had been before. Apparently they are building some kind of tourist park and there was a lot of construction going on. There were some really cool statues depicting different ghosts. I wouldn't but this high on my ... read more
