Ed_from_Denver

My wife and I are about to book Viking River Cruises' Imperial Treasures of China trip with the 2 day extension in Shanghai. My only concern is the cruise portion of the trip! Will we get "bored" during the river cruise? We're in our early 40's, active, and have done alot of international traveling. Has anyone been on this trip who can advise us? Also is the scenery along the Yangtze gorges really "magnificent", as the Viking brochure suggests? Please be candid. Thanks!

rkkwan

The Yangtze Gorges is magnificent. However, it only takes two days to pass through it and the big dam going downstream. The first day and the last 3-4 are pretty boring.

PeterN_H

Those of us who consider the Three Gorges cruise an over-hyped tourist-as-victim waste of time which would be better spent actually seeing some real China, would be glad of your opinion (either way) once you return.

But, the water is polluted, the atmosphere is polluted, much on the banks is hideous, the passage through the gorges is brief, and the gorges themselves are not particularly impressive.

It's a pleasant enough way to take a break if you are on a frenetic tour (tour guides certainly think so), but the quality of the boats is nothing special and nor is the food, the side trips are ersatz, and the magnificence is all in the mind of the salespeople and their brochures.

China has a great deal of magnificent scenery where time would be better spent than on a Yangzi River vessel.

Peter N-H
http://members.shaw.ca/pnhpublic/China.html

Cicerone

This is one of the few points on which Peter and I agree. The gorge trip is overhyped. The pollution of the water and air is very bad, plus with all the construction for the dams, a lot of the beauty of the area has been lost, IMO. I see from Vikings' website that this is a 7 night cruise, way too long even if you wanted to see the gorges. Finally, most of the cruise ships are quite old boats, not a nice luxury cruise ship which you might be expecting. I don't know the Viking Century Star personally, but I would say that the term "deluxe" has no meaning in China, so the boat could be quite basic; although the fact that it was built in 2003 gives me some comfort that it may at least be modern.

All in all, I would give this a miss. I agree that there are more beautiful sights. You could actually do a tour of China on your own quite easily. This site and guidebooks would give you all you need to know.

Jed

We did the 4 night trip through the gorges to the dam, which I felt was very good, and enough.

happytourist

We're looking at taking the Viking trip next spring with the side trip to Tibet. My travel agent told me that an older man who took the cruise in May is taking it again in September. I can't imagine doing the same one twice, at least so soon, but apparently he had a wonderful time. I read that Martin Yan developed some of the recipes they are using. Viking has done high quality cruises in Europe for years.

Elainee

3 or 4 day cruise is good, but longer...no. We did a 3/4 day cruise and enjoyed it. You get a real understanding of what this dam means to China. Moving whole towns/cities, flooding coal mines and agriculture areas. Interesting!! We found the side trips fascinating. Building the largest dam in the world and we saw just 2 pieces of fair-size earth moving equipment. One excellent museum on the trip and some good temples. The entertainment on our boat was good, much to my surprise. We did not bother to go the first evening. The whole staff had been professionally trained at the beginning of the season to put on these evening entertainments. What a good job they did. Plus one night we had a "face changer". This elderly man was the highlight of our trip. The naturalist on board gives good lectures. We bought kites and drawings from the artists on board (we are not shoppers!!) In its own way, the cruise gives you a different view into China. Good for 3/4 days..not for a whole week.

USNR

We went upstream from Wuhan to Chungking (I know, I know, some people spell it differently). Anyway, we found living conditions and working conditions to be absolutely awful. The gorges, as said here, are brief but hardly awe-inspiring. The air and water were terribly dirty, the ship was a genuine rust-bucket with no evidence of any maintenance or even cleaning (abundant rat feces behind our bed!), and food just barely edible. The living conditions of the people were simply horrendous -- shacks, mostly. Great gobs of industrial sewage floated by on the grey-brown water. Enormous gangs of men carrying burdens from the docks onto the coal barges. Ant-like lines of men bent double under the weight of fertilizer bags. Naked men ladeling human sewage onto "honey barges" for dumping downstream. It was like something out of Hieronymous Bosch. We saw that, once away from the coast, China is centuries behind. Simply awful.

PeterN_H

How refreshing to read for a change a posting from someone who actually had their eyes open when on the boat, and a vividly expressed one, too. Three cheers for USNR.

Of course there are better quality ships than the one described, and some of the most hideous and filthy factories on the banks which would have made even the worst excesses of Victorian England look like models of environmental planning have now been submerged, but in general for those who look out of the ship, instead of inwards at conjurors, overpriced souvenirs, and streams of largely false information from guides, will see precisely what USNR describes.

It's a worthwhile education that China is in fact, as USNR puts it, mostly 'centuries behind', and is not the up-and-coming shiny colossus of growing incomes and happy happy joy joy lucky lucky people it is presented to the uncritical tourist as being.

The Yangzi River and the Three Gorges Dam are both environmental disasters, and the dam has displaced millions more than claimed, many of whom have seen what inadequate compensation was offered stolen by officials for their own purposes and have been dumped in remote and unappealing corners of China without having any say in the matter. The dam is in the wrong place to deal with the worst of China's current acute electricity shortages, and is principally the result of the Communist Party's desire to show itself to be of imperial stature, and of the moronic thug Li Peng in particular to leave a more lasting mark than the easily washed away blood stains of those killed in and around Tian'an Men Square during the violent suppression of the student occupation.

This information is not likely to appear in the guides' scripts while they point out features of the landscape which bear an uncanny dissimilarity to the mythical beasts and persons for whom they were only recently named for the purposes of amusing gullible tourists.

In short, this cruise is everything that's most fake about China to those who choose to shut their eyes and ears to the realities, and everything that's real (but perhaps not quite what they wanted from a holiday) for those who don't.

Peter N-H
http://members.shaw.ca/pnhpublic/China.html

Jed

"Enormous gangs of men carrying burdens from the docks onto the coal barges. Ant-like lines of men bent double under the weight of fertilizer bags. Naked men ladeling human sewage onto "honey barges" for dumping downstream."

Reminds me of the futuristic silent movie (was it Metropolis?) of hoards of robot-like men slaving away, the result of the evils of capitalism.

Spygirl

Really, that does sound rather like something out of some sci fi movie-USNR, your post is really provocative-I'm surprised the Chinese govt. would allow you to see scenes like that!

USNR

Well, the Chinese government did nothing to prevent me from opening my eyes -- in fact, I have photographic proof to back up my words.

Just after dark one time, we could see a rosey glow in the sky, outlining a hill that blocked a bend in the river. As we got closer and rounded the point, we could see a huge fire. I'm talking HUGE. One of the coal piles, about the size of a city block and perhaps 50 ft. high, had caught fire. Hundreds of men were working double-time to move that pile, using bamboo baskets suspended on poles. At any moment the burning pile would have tumbled down upon them, burying them alive under tons of red-hot embers. We could feel the heat altho I suppose we must have been a thousand yards away. Talk about working conditions!

We saw factories where young women were dipping silkworm cocoons out of boiling-hot water, their hands not protected with gloves.

We saw cloisonne factories where workers polished the vases against whirring grindstones, and not a single pair of safety glasses anywhere and the entire shed lit by naked bulbs of perhaps 40 watts power.

No, China has a long way to go -- while the government prospers, their factory managers lay on the work, and the workers have the worst working conditions imaginable. You should see the filth spewing forth from factory chimneys. The Yangtze is practically coated with it in some spots where the smoke dips down to the water's surface. You have to see it to believe it.

Spygirl

USNR- what I meant by that is that I would think the Chinese Govt., partic. their tourist authority, would route such Yangtze tourist cruises away from such real life scenes in favor of a "scenic" route where such would not be visible, and thus reported to the outside world.

USNR

Spygirl: we came away with the conclusion that the terrible conditions we saw were pervasive and that there was no way to hide them. To their credit, our guides made no attempt to divert our attention, instead saying that their country was struggling to overcome the years of "Western capitalist exploitation."

rkkwan

Many people would appreciate the chance to see how actual Chinese people live their lives. And here's an opportunity to see the real China, but from your own cabin on a cruise ship. If that's not what you want to see, then this trip is not for you.

circa2

Interesting!

Certainly cannot argue those facts...USNR, and Peter.

Did the Yangtze "up stream" in 2001.
Wanted to see the damn being built more than anything. Why? who knows..just one of those things.

I did enjoy my trip, however, in my pre-trip research I also was enlightened at the many beautiful areas of China.. and would have to agree that the Yangtze wasn't one of them.

Of the major cities: Shanghai, Wuhan, Chungquing,Beijing [that I visited], Chunquing was my favorite.[The People's Square is awesome]

rkkwan

Seems like USNR is able to see the real China on his/her trip, environmental diasaster and all. I don't see how Peter can say that a Yangtze cruise is "everything that's most fake about China".

kang

Even though I, a Chinese, do agree that the Yangtze Cruise thing is indeed overhyped, I am totally appalled by USNR's vicious depiction of China. From his lengthy description of a country that's been undergoing her most profound changes with enormous complexities, I couldn't find a single posive sentence from UNSR's posts.

Now tell me, UNSR, Where is your venom from and why?

Had you ever been touched even for once by any kindness of Chinese while visiting there? Had you ever witnessed any clean street, enjoyable scenery, smiling ordinary people? Even a 10% fair minded individual would try to present at least a little bit balance and objectivity. Unfortunately, I found none in your posts, sir.

Don't give me that BS that since Chinese government is a communist government then by default, everything is bad. I know better than that and other people on this board, too.

I haven't been in China for more than three years but I do know that China has changed a lot since my last visit for the better. I went to my first Yangtze Cruise three years ago and even then, the whole experience was a whole lot different from what UNSR pictured.

Finally, for the OP, unless you have more than, say, three weeks in China, your time is probably indeed better spent on somewhere else than on the cruise.

USNR

Mr. Kang: I only report what I saw. I see no reason to either sugar-coat or to be negative. Our days on the Yangtze were interesting, revealing, and appalling.