Just Returned from China & Yangtze Riverboat Trip

[onespots]

We just finished 21 days in China & 3 nights on the Century Legend sailing up the gorge to visit the hydroelectric dam. Although this is mostly a land tour, I thought I should share some of our experiences as a first time USA visitor.

We had a tour director for the entire trip who handled all of our issues & the inner country flights & ground transportation. Her name is Jue, she spoke excellent English & was easy to understand. We could have never done this trip without her & the local guides.

 

This trip included the usual sites starting in Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Lasha, Yangtze River Cruise, Yichang, & Shanghai. September 4-24-2016.

 

Fisrt Observations of China:

Weather very warm (90) with lots of humidity

Beijiing Big City with 24 million people & very loud & crowded

Traffic a nightmare... Seems there are few rules & lots of honking of car horns... Many scooters mostly electric & few bicycles

Main sites busy with people taking lots of photos & selfies, with pushing, bumping, & moving you out of the way to get the photo

Everyone walks or uses public transportation if they do not own a car or scooter

I was surprised how clean this city is with the streets not being filled with garbage & cigarette butts & throughout our trip

Did need the sanitation wipes, as most public bathrooms were in poor condition & lacking paper. Most were the usual Chinese type, however the guides pointed out the western toilets when available. However it was usually only one toilet in the facility Be prepared... All the hotels & boat have western toilets

 

I found the local people to be interesting & curious They enjoy each other & spend a lot of time together with family & friends. The local public parks are their meeting areas to enjoy song & dance, card games, exercise, conversations, etc

They seem to be a happy group of people who engage in a lot of social settings

Many wanted their picture taken with us

 

Our group quickly tired of the usual Chines food lunches & dinners on this regular 17 day tour ( the food is good but usually the same )

All of our hotels offered a western breakfast & we enjoyed exceptional accommodations on this trip

 

I wished we had more home visits & spent more time in the hutongs to understand how the locals live

There is a great deal of construction everywhere we went building new high rises & housing for the city dwellers

The highway & roads are very good in China, just extremely crowded in the cities ( a small town to them is 5-6 million people )

 

Century Legend Riverboat

This a very nice boat for this kind of travel. The cabins were more spacious than the average on ocean vessels. Shower much larger with great water pressure. Lots of areas to view from while riding on the boat.

2 evening production shows were provided by the crew & staff. We thought they were well done & entertaining. We had 2 short shore visits during the cruise with our final destination the dam. After a wonderful tour & plenty of free time we returned to the ship for lunch & after a short cruise departed at Yichang. After a quick tour we were bused to the airport to fly to Shanghai.

This was one of my favorite events. A nice rest from all of the long walks & the service levels quite good on the ship. Ship takes just over 300 passengers.

 

Final Thoughts:

This trip is not for everyone

It include some strenuous walks & lots of effort

Any mobility type issues will make this trip very difficult ( several in our group were not in good enough shape to handle all the walking & steps.

Some required wheelchairs at the airports which are difficult to find.

Lasha, Tibet is 12000 ft many had severe altitude sickness & were not prepared for this. Fortunately for me I was not bothered by the altitude, the only one in the group. Several people missed daily excursions due to illness & we were there for 3 nights.

Most of what I had envisioned about China prior to the trip was wrong & came away with a better understanding of current conditions. Yes it is a 3rd world country, with communism & a very strict government. However we had a nice time, learned a lot from our guides & visits, & came away with just how large this country is with the 100's million people living there. At times it was very over-whelming... We left with lots of good memories & an appreciation of how good things are here the USA.

 

Happy Travels, John

[DipBrat]

Very nice review and astute observations for a first time. There were no western meal options on the boat?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[ROCruiser]

Thank you for sharing. Excellent observations! Were meals on the Century family style or buffet style? We did the Victoria cruises a couple of times which had family style Chinese food. Last November we were on the Sinorama Gold 8 and they had buffet style with both western and Asian food choices. Much better!

[onespots]

Thank you all for the responses to our trip.

 

The meals on the Century Legend were all buffet offering both western & Chinese dishes. Several fresh items were offered at the grill for each of the meals.

Breakfast included omelets & eggs of your choice, while lunch & dinner included fresh grill Chinese items like chicken & some fish. We enjoyed every meal with a large variety of dishes at every buffet. We did have one fixed evening meal all western arranged by Vantage our tour group on the final night.

 

Thanks for your interest, John

[Karennella]

We first went to China, just a day trip from Hong Kong, in 1988 and returned a few years later for about five days. Then a longer stay in 2003 when relatives were expats in Shanghai and we also went to Beijing and Harbin. Later my husband has been on golf tours. It has been incredible to see the progress over the years and I would think that China is now a developing country rather than still third world.

Regardless our future here in Australia is very closely linked to China's fate and our Chinese immigrants are probably integrating more quickly and successfully than any other non- English speaking group that we have ever had.

We are booked on an extensive tour of China next year which includes a four night river cruise and so looking forward to it.

We are aware that one does get tired of Chinese food constantly and so opted for a tour which includes quite a few western options.

I have to say that I have always felt safer in China than in many western destinations and hopefully that will not change next year.

[TravelMore&More]

Third world country??? Ha! Ha!