Cruising on the Yangtze
As I mentioned in my last post, my parents came to China last month! Beijing is old hat to my mom, but it was my dad's first time so I dragged him to all the major highlights while my mom worked. After that was done, we took them both on a Yangtze River Cruise that left from the city of Chongqing (Chong-ching). That may seem like no big deal (given the casual way I just wrote that) but Chongqing is far away—more than 1,000 miles, actually—so we had to book flights and everything. Chongqing is a mammoth city of more than THIRTY MILLION people, and its downtown is built on the banks of the Yangtze River where it meets the Jialing River. Its nickname is shan cheng, which means “mountain city,” a name it earned by being built on…yep, mountains. It's one of those Chinese cities that morphed into a mega-monster over the course of four seconds, so the skyline is mostly made up of buildings younger than I am.
I’d never given much thought to Chongqing before this trip, so I wasn’t particularly jazzed to spend time there. But because domestic air travel in China is notoriously unreliable, we booked a super early flight to allow time for snafus, and hired a tour guide named Yudy to help us fill the seven hours we potentially would have to kill before we could board our ship.
We arrived on time, so even though my parents were looking a little bleary-eyed already, we took off touristing. The weather was warmer and more humid than Beijing’s, so we ditched our jackets and, after some unsettling driving up and down hills, arrived at Gooseneck Park.
Here we wandered around, looked at majestic banyan trees, and watched old folks play majiang and drink tea. It seemed like it was just a nice park, like others we’ve seen in Beijing and beyond, until we arrived at the edge of the hill and found ourselves suddenly looking down on the river and the city beyond. Wow people, the view was amazing. Even if it was shrouded in smog, or fog (it could’ve been either, the city is notoriously foggy). We stood there and took in the stunning-yet-slightly-foreboding view and marveled at the the industrial mastery of China. After that, we stumbled upon an old lady's outdoor birthday party, whereupon my whole family ended up in a photo with the locals. Authentic experience: complete.
Or almost complete. After Gooseneck Park we had an authentic hotpot meal, which is what you’re supposed to do in Chongqing. Spicy hot pot is the city’s claim to fame—and some say it's the secret behind Chongqing’s beautiful women—so I wanted to try it. Turns out spicy means spicy, and I spent some time at the table crying and wiping my nose. For those of you who haven’t had hotpot, it’s essentially a big, boiling vat of broth that you dump vegetables and meats into for a few minutes before fishing them out, dunking them in sauce, and eating them. It’s good, but the spicy kind is probably going to leave newbies with some rigorous bowel activity—it’s not food poisoning, it’s just hotpot diarrhea. My parents prudently stuck to the non-spicy broth, and we all drank a bunch of water and tried not to be overwhelmed by all the ingredients on our table. My husband also crushed a massive cockroach with his foot, so overall it was an A+ meal.
After lunch we went to a place called Hongya Cave, an ancient building dating back more than 2,000 years that's built into the side of a mountain on the banks of the Jialing River. It’s been aggressively commercialized (I'm not sure any of it is still "ancient") and giant Starbucks and Subway (sandwiches) signs hang near the top, which gave us a chuckle.
But we checked out the “food floor” which was full of traditional snack vendors and candy makers giving out free samples (sweet!) Here I had a conversation with Yudy about popular plastic surgery procedures among the locals. She pointed out a few enhanced noses and eyelids walking by, and then she showed me her own eyelashes, which were long, black, gorgeous, and fake. I also noticed lots of women wearing the kind of contact lenses that make the iris look bigger. Big eyes/big irises are considered attractive here, but they freak me out.
Our last stop in Chongqing was Huguang Guild Hall, which is an ancient complex of buildings that served as a kind of cultural meeting place during the Qing dynasty (mid 1700s). The complex had its own theater, ancestral worship halls, meeting rooms, and restaurants. It was a quiet spot with barely any other tourists, which meant we could take our time trying to decipher the museum guide's English, which was much better than my Chinese but not always easy to follow. Some of the buildings were covered in intricate wood carvings, and many rooms were populated with figurines enacting scenes from the past. In the museum gift shop we saw hand-painted leaves from the banyan tree, an art-form specific to Chongqing. There are allegedly two (just two!) local artists who follow an authentic procedure of drying and treating the leaves before painting them with different scenes. The artwork is delicate and beautiful, and replicated on tchotchkes all over the city.
Around 6:30PM we arrived at the pier to board our ship. Having been awake since 5AM we were all shadow people ready to face plant on a soft surface. But as we got out of the van I saw a grey, mangy-looking boat sporting the name of our cruise company. My heart sank and I came to terms with the fact that after dragging my parents across the country and around Chongqing we were escorting them onto a run-down, water-born roach coach. Gasp. But THEN I realized that the mangy boat was actually the boarding vehicle, which was shorter than our cruise ship and parked directly in front of it—a situation that created a seamless optical illusion of despair. To my insane relief, the actual cruise ship was clean and shiny and welcoming—hot towels? Tea? You got it. Yudy helped us check in, and pushed hard for us to upgrade our room for a mere few thousand renminbi. Ermmm, no thanks. She and the staff also told us we’d asked to have rooms far away from each other, which was disconcerting and made my husband and I suddenly expect foul play/hidden fees. But after turning down the upgrade, we headed to our rooms—close together after all—and my dad’s facial expression transformed from “make it stop” to “this is alright.” That night we got a safety briefing (in English) and attended the welcome ceremony, which was a loud, colorful series of small performances and speeches. The cruise manager welcomed everybody to dance and “party until late,” but everyone filed out of the bar as soon as the last act was over around 9PM. Thus began our journey.
The cruise route went from Chongqing to Yichang along the Yangtze river (that’s heading northeast) and spanned four days. The special thing about this segment of the Yangtze River is that it’s upstream from the massive Three Gorges Dam, which is one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams and essentially the star attraction of our cruise. Originally envisioned by Sun Yat Sen (1920s), the dam project was developed by Mao Zedong (1950s-70s) but didn’t become a reality until the early 1990s, long after Mao’s death. Construction began in 1994 amidst controversy about the project’s environmental and human impacts, and the dam became operational in 2006. The total cost was around $39 billion, and at the time it was completed the dam was expected to supply 10 percent of China’s power needs. Whoa. The Three Gorges dam takes its name from the stunning gorges along that stretch of the river.
The dam project caused the water level upstream to rise, forcing approx 1.3 million people living in villages, towns, and cities along the river to relocate. Their homes and hometowns were ultimately either flooded or completely submerged. Some of these folks were moved to newly built towns above the high-water mark, while others were sent to different parts of China to start new lives. Many historic sites and cultural relics were also submerged and lost forever. Now, when the river is at its highest, it’s 361 feet higher upstream than it is downstream, which gives you an idea of how significant the water level change was, and how deep the waters of the Yangtze are now.
Back to our ship: our first full day on board started with a serious sore throat for me, a mild one for my mom, and a fairly satisfying breakfast buffet. We were seated with the handful of other waiguoren (foreigners) who were not part of a tour group. The dining room was huge and full of tourists, many of whom were Chinese, and some of whom were Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and European. The staff treated us like kings, and we commenced serious relaxation post breakfast. Lunch came shortly after breakfast (it seemed) and before we knew it we were almost fully adjusted to our new, overfed, under-exercised cruise life.
In the afternoon of our first day we disembarked to look at Shibaozhai Pagoda (sher-bough-jigh (as in, “sigh") a 12 tier wooden structure built into the side of a mountain. It’s 184 feet tall, and the first nine levels were built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The top three tiers were built in the 1950s, and now hundreds (thousands?) of tourists climb the pagoda every day. Each floor has statues of different deities, and a steep wooden staircase leading to the next level. The walk up the stairs was a bit of a squish-fest, as we were sandwiched between eager tour groups that were hell-bent on getting to the top as quickly as possible. To quote our guide: “We Chinese people are very anxious to get to the destination.” The pagoda was very cool, if a little rickety (will this thing collapse today?), and it was nice to stretch our legs a bit. At the top, we found a temple full of suspiciously new statues of (Buddhist?) gods. We also found a tiny bridge spanning a tiny pool, and our guide told us that if we could cross the bridge in 3, 7, or 9 steps we would have good fortune. If not, we would fall into the pool below, where a giant—I mean GIANT—salamander (if that’s what it actually was) was lurking (lots of people tried, no one fell in).
The bottom tier of the pagoda is actually below water level, so a barricade wall (kind of like a levy) was built around the pagoda to preserve it from the floods and retain the pagoda as a historic landmark. Needless to say, we were exhausted and starving after our incredibly strenuous (ha) 90 minute excursion, so we were jazzed to eat yet another giant meal in the dining room. We had the same servers every meal, and they were already learning our quirks (more coffee, please). After dinner we attended the evening’s entertainment, which came with noisemakers and strange games—audience members dressing up like roosters and having a public egg-laying competition. Whaat? My husband and I each ordered a $10 old fashioned, which turned out to be a weak whiskey soda with a slice of lemon dropped into it. Meh. We got a laugh out of it all, though, even if we left early.
By the next morning we were old hands at finding the best foods at the buffet (there was also a make-to-order station that had a different option for every meal—jackpot) and my parents were fully accustomed to the etiquette of waiting in the buffet line (aka, waiting is for fools, use your elbows and get in there).
The timeline is a little blurry for me now, but I think we passed through the first of the three gorges on the second full day of the cruise. This first gorge is called “Quting Gorge” (choo-ting, sort of) and in my memory it marked the change from more populated river banks to wild, remote, very steep country. The gorge was deep—made more incredible by the fact that it used to be hundreds of feet deeper before the dam was built. As we passed between looming mountains we saw several caves in the rock walls and a few small signs of civilization—a tiny cluster of houses clinging to a ledge here, a ladder leading up the river bank there. It seemed impossible to sustain life/comfort on those steep sides of the gorge, and it felt pretty weird to be floating by on a luxury boat while it didn't seem possible that the few people on land had access to electricity. The scenery was truly stunning, and trying to take photos was pretty laughable because a) the scenery did not actually fit in the camera’s field and b) the quality of the photos was always lackluster in comparison to reality. Nonetheless, I’ve included a few shots here. Our passage through the gorge came with loud commentary in both Chinese and English from our cruise manager Alan, who stood on the top deck and yelled into a microphone as we rolled through the 8 kilometers of the gorge.
The other highlight of our second day on board was an excursion down the Shennu (Goddess) Stream, which is a small tributary of the Yangtze River. We were escorted onto little boats that took us down the stream under the guidance of a local. Our guide’s name was Rabbit, she told us, because she had big teeth (she didn’t). The stream was narrow relative to the Yangtze, and the mountains on either side were incredibly steep and beautiful—we had to lean back pretty far in our seats to see the tops, and Rabbit told us the highest peaks around use were 740 meters tall. Dang. The ride was peaceful along green waters, and the scenery was so breathtaking that it was almost funny. At one point we saw a wire running across the stream with one lonely lightbulb hanging from it. I don’t know how the locals pulled this wiring feat off, but the purpose of the light is to attract fish at night, which the locals then catch in nets. My mom and dad sat out on the deck most of our ride, and it seemed like maybe my dad had found his happy place, staring up into the mountains while buzzing along in a little boat. We also saw (or were told we saw, because it was really really high up) a small cave on the mountain face that is said to contain an ancient coffin—apparently in the old days dead bodies were put to rest in this caves high above the water in barely accessible places. The Goddess Stream is close to Wushan, a city that was abandoned and rebuilt in anticipation of the dam, which submerged the original city.
The second gorge we passed through is called the Wu (woo) Gorge, and is longer than the Quting, stretching 45 kilometers. It is equally beautiful (maybe more so?) but at this point we were somewhat over-saturated with beautiful scenery—landscapes more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen? Yawn, when’s lunch?—and things like the over-amplified commentary started to annoy us. Fortunately we could always take refuge in our rooms and watch the banks slide by from our personal balconies (yeah, this cruise was pretty nice, folks). After the Wu Gorge we attended the "farewell buffet dinner," which included a champagne toast from the captain and a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne sung by the staff. My favorite Chinese-ified line: "Should old acquaintance be forget." My mom and I were the only ones brave enough to attend the final entertainment that night—something I don’t regret BECAUSE we saw a very weird performance that involved an oversized catholic bishop on stilts, and what seemed to be a marriage between two actors we’d grown to know and love. We also watched an unfamiliar version of musical chairs with audience participants. Wow, all worth it.
Late that night we reached the dam itself, and our ship began the slow journey down through the dam’s locks. This was serious business, as the ship had to descend about 100 meters to get to the bottom of the dam. The locks have five gates, each one lowering the ship about 20 meters, and the whole process took over three hours. Late at night, the locks were a quiet concrete wasteland with some potted flower arrangements(?) and lots of screeching metal noises, fog, and gaseous odors. Definitely eery, but also impressive.
In the morning—our last morning on the boat—we were bused out to the dam and herded around to the tourist spots from which we could look at the dam itself and read about it. This was the least fun part of the trip for me, as it was a little heavy on the lines of people, pushing, and tour guides yelling into microphones. I also had irrational anger spikes towards the two dudes in our group who were perpetually spaced out, missing meetup times and ignoring their names, when called. Haha, my rage was unfair and definitely a side-effect of being part of a herd of sheeple. Baaaaa. But the dam itself was very impressive—the kind of huge that your brain doesn’t really register when you’re looking at it. Like, yeah, it looks pretty big, but it doesn’t look like it’s an entire 1.4 miles long. Whoa. Here are some photos.
After getting back onto the boat, we had an hour or two to pack up our things and float through the third and final gorge, the Xiling Gorge. This one is 66 kilometers long and, get this, ALSO beautiful. On the banks of the Xiling Gorge we saw a totally rebuilt tribal village that looked both new/shiny and ancient due to the architectural style—very strange. My husband stayed in our room for this particular gorge, and my dad only came up to the top deck when we were halfway through. The two of them were “all set” with the announcement style.
Early in the afternoon we reached Yichang and disembarked at the bottom of a very steep hill. Since we weren’t part of a tour group with an arranged pick-up, I forced my family to climb the very steep hill to the place where a Didi driver would pick us up (Didi is like Uber, but Chinese!). Then the Didi driver scammed us out of a good price, which I cared a lot about but my husband didn’t care as much about. My parents listened to us have yet another conversation in Chinese and English about how we were getting scammed, and we decided to roll with it. Before we knew it, we were at the Yichang airport and ready to head out. Our flight was delayed an hour, but we made it back safe and sound and tired.
Overall, it was a great trip, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a cool thing to do in China. The total cruise cost was $675 per couple for 4 days with meals and tours included, and the company we went with is called Century Legend Cruises. Not too shabby, given the quality of the boat and the service. Sometimes I think about that scary dirty boat I thought we were going to board in Chongqing and I am deeply relieved all over again—haha, nothing like the emotional rollercoaster of travel, AM I RIGHT?
That’s all for now, but Happy Holidays to all!