On a slow boat in China
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A Yangtze cruise on a boat for domestic tourists is a journey filled with local flavor. |
Though the ferry picks up and deposits passengers en route we do not have time for sight-seeing. This might have been a mistake. There is an abundance of interesting stopover points, we are told, among them the "ghost city" of Fengdu; Wanxian's night market; historic temples in Fengjie; and the Qu Yuan Shrine in Zigui. We stop for a couple of hours in one port and an army of surveyors comes on board with tape measures. We halt again at a floating station for gasoline.
Nevertheless, we're content and there's plenty to see not just from the boat, but also on it. We take the occasional stroll below-decks where, in the absence of organized entertainment, there are long games of cards in smoky cabins. Relaxation is key. The majority of our fellow travelers wear flip-flops, pajamas and T-shirts rolled up to expose belly buttons.
As for dining, it's best to take your own supplies, otherwise you'll be buying pot noodles at the shop, or experiencing galley food, a diet of rice and vegetables seasoned with pickles and washed down with beer.
After another night we're in the Three Gorges, an approximately 192 km stretch of scenic beauty comprising Qutang, Wu and Xiling gorges. There's fresh excitement at this juncture and every other passenger becomes a photographer - even if all they have is a phone.
They snap towering limestone cliffs and point out the famous peaks. The river here is sometimes more like a lake, with islands in the middle inhabited by farmers. They tend orange groves, herb gardens and golden rape fields. The blossoms of spring and the falling leaves of autumn makes these the ideal seasons for a cruise. Summer is too hot and winter, too cold.
We arrive early afternoon in Yichang, which used to be known as "Gateway to the Gorge", but is now as much a stopping off point for visits to the Three Gorges Dam. We could go further, downstream to Wuhan, scene of the Battle of Red Cliffs, to Nanjing and Shanghai. But we have had enough of adventure and it's good to be back on terra firma.
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