Blogs from Yangtze River, Yunnan, China, Asia

We booked in with a tour company out of Lijiang to see a whole bunch of canyons, mountains, temples and more. I was a little apprehensive over whether we would get value, see cool things and be on some Contiki thing. BUt it was excellent. We all pilled into a twenty seater bus and headed off into the hills. Going was slow as we were on secondary road with lots of traffic going both ways on both sides of the road while looking over the edge of incredible high mountains. We made plenty of photo stops and one was interesting. it was my first sight of the mighty Yangtzee river. the spot we saw is where it comes out of the Himalaian platteau and then makes it's first U-turn. The reason this is significant is that ... read more

url='/Videos/4129.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4129.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Rising water in the Yangtze's Boat Locksurl='/Videos/4130.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4130.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Dancers on the Yangtze River After another 14 hour sojourn across the Chinese countryside, we pulled into the city of Yichang, on the Yangtze river. We dropped most of our stuff off at a hotel, as we'd be hopping around the river for the next few days with different accomodations each night. Following a great lunch which we were told would likely be our last "solid" meal until we returned from the Yangtze, we headed out to the site of the Three Gorges Dam which many of us were excited to see. The dam is actually part of a huge complex that spreads out across the horizon. It's hard to really take in the enormity of the site, and... read more

This blog will encompass the three days of the cruise. The Yangtse is nicknamed the furnace for a reason after 5 minutes on deck it got so hot to even breath properly so sight seeing for the first day was restricted. We set sail early in the morning and had a welcome cocktail party in the afternoon before visiting the Ghost Fengdu. This place is rather strange all set up around the Chinese supperstitions of afterlife and the gates to Hell. This temple complex compossed of many structures with their own stories to tell including the tourture chambers for those sinners out there. Later this evening we hads some drinks and learned how to play Mah-jongg in the boats bar. ... read more

The morning started with no one manning the front desk of the hotel, so we were not able to get the deposit back for the key. Not the start we wanted. Our taxi ride then took us to the Hydrofoil port, which was nowhere near the water. This did not bode well, and we were ushered onto a bus and driven an hour up the river, driving past the dam, the very dam we were assured we would go through by our guidebook (the repeatedly poor Rough Guide) and by the ticket office. Finding a seat on the hydrofoil, we then set off on the 5 hour journey upstream. The scenery we went through this morning was awesome, sheer lush green cliffs rising out of the water which used to be much taller than they ... read more

There are several “must sees” on our China travel list, so we decided to use our May holiday break to visit one of them: the mighty Yangtze River. Spanning the distance from Tibet to Shanghai, the Yangtze is wide, rugged, polluted, and flanked by spectacular scenery and a cross section of many Chinese lifestyles. Our cruise vessel: the Victoria Katarina. A comfie little river cruiser complete with such unexpected amenities as private stateroom balconies for primo viewing, great food (a real perk for Sheri), HBO (Uggg - a real perk for the kids), a wonderful top viewing deck, lots of elderly foreigners, and even neighbor friends from Shanghai! Trip duration: 4 days from Chongqing to the 3 gorges hydroelectric dam. Most interesting point: 1.3 million people are being displaced from the riverside villages due to ... read more