my wife and I are going on a cruise on the yang tze river, we were wondering if we should go up or down river, and how many days is enough? Any other advise on this trip would be great. <BR>thank you michael

I don't believe that going up-river or down-river will make much difference in your trip, except that going down-river is about a day faster. The important thing is that you take the "western leg" of the river, from Wuhan to Chongqing. This is the part of the trip that includes the spectacular 3 Gorges and the other wonderful sights that will be submerged within a few years time. The "eastern leg", from Shanghai to Wuhan, has a few picturesque spots, but could probably be missed. Ten days, the time that it takes to cover the entire navigable river, is more time than necessary. All you need to spend is the 3-4 days that it will take you to go from Wuhan to Chongqing. It's wonderful!

Took the trip in Sept. The river trip lasted 6 days. Which is about 3 days too long. Outside of the three gorges and the dam site there isn't much else. Email me if you need more info.

We were on the river for 3 days last Oct. We went up river which was quite dramatic due to the river current. They had had a lot of rain the previous week. <BR>We had to take a shipping diversion at the dam site. At one point we were not moving at all due to the current. A tug came along behind us and could tried to push us to no avail. The tug left and came back about 1/2 hour later with a steel cable from a moored tug. The tug tied up alongside us and pulled us through the diversion. We did the three gourges one day and took a smaller boat up the lesser gourges. We almost missed the lesser gourges due to the heigth of the water in the lesser gourges. It was very turbulent but worth it.

I agree with Emily. We took a 24-day tour of China which included the Yangtze River all the way from Chongqing to Shanghai. The route from Chongqing to Wuhan is more than long enough unless you really like the boat/cruise experience. We passed the most spectaclar scenery in just one day of the cruise, and the lesser 3 gorges is also very nice.