China 6 - Yangtze Cruise on a Chinese Boat and Other Odysseys

One thing is clear: We want to go on a cruise on the Yangtze river through the famous Three Gorges. The only question is: Is this possible on a tight budget? We search a lot ahead: Read Guidebooks, Blog articles and study the offers of International Tour Operators. The result: A luxurious cruise ship costs at least 300€ for 3 nights, that’s our monthly budget! However there are cheaper options: Passenger boats, Hydrofoils and “Chinese” Cruise ships. The first both pass the Gorges at night, so that’s no option. But what is the difference between international and Chinese Ships?! Our guidebook highlights the food and language skills of the staff.

Well, we love Chinese food (except for the breakfast, but a roll of cookies will help) and during the past 70 days we rarely met any English speakers. We even learnt a bit of Chinese, however we still need to use our translation apps a lot. We cannot claim we are used to luxury, so we decide to save money and go on a Chinese ship. Based on the report of … our only fear is it might get really cold – but then we usually spend all our time outside, so what.

We hope it is possible to book the cruise only when we arrive in Chongqing to remain as flexible as possible. Based on blog recommendations we chose a nice hostel with English speaking staff, where we plan to sleep, book the cruise and store our bicycles. It is still 86km to go, with about 3000m elevation gain – maybe we can do this today? Right after the start, the way gets muddy. More and more mud. A factory seems to depose ist waste water directly on the unpaved road. Shit – Monis wheels slip and she lands in the smelly mud together with her bicycle. This increases our motivation to reach the hostel, a shower and laundry tonight. We push our pedals as hard as we can and don’t let the darkness stop us. Usually we pitch our tent when sun sets at 18:00. Thanks to the street lightning in the city area of Chongqing this is not a big issue today.

Far away from the city center skyscrapers raise to the clouds, an interesting mix of modern houses, ruins and plenty of construction sites. In Europe mostly unknown, Chongqing is one of the largest towns in China, a megacity with more than 10 million inhabitants in the city center and 32 million in the city area.

Totally exhausted we reach the recommended Yangtze River Hostel at around 10 pm, but there is only a construction site?! We compare it to the pictures, we are at the correct house… Shit! So we start to look for an alternative accommodation. On our map every second house is a hotel, this cannot be complicated. We cannot spot the first 3 hotels, the next 3 are fully booked. So we stop at a wifi bar to chose the next ones on Trip.com. But this leads to the same result everywhere: No rooms left. We guess the staff is just not keen on dealing with the paperwork for two foreigners at so late – but we can’t help the situation. In the end we decide to camp right next to the closed hostel. Normally no problem, we spend most night outside. However this is a totally different feeling, when the choice of being homeless is not voluntary. We feel sad, stressed and anxious: When we cannot even manage to book a simple hotel room, how will booking a Yangtze cruise work out?!

New day, new luck! Or bad luck, we realize we lost our helmet and action cam at some point of yesterdays Odyssey. Or someone stole it during the night? We cannot even remember when we had it the last time. Well, this doesn’t help anyway – we try to swallow frustration and anger and concentrate on booking a cruise. Lots of travel agencies are located at the river site, however nobody speaks English. WE are not even sure, what offers are available or what we want to book – so we cycle back to the wifi bar. We guess this is the only realistic place to find our camera. Some research later we don’t know more, the only sure thing is: Our camera is not here. Next door is a relatively large travel agency (Chongqing China Youth Travel Service, GPS 29.565908, 106.584353, Tel: 17783043466 / 17783043477 / 17783043599 / 02363807177 / 02363807277), so we give it one more try. At least we are welcomed with the question „Do you speak Chinese?“– our answer „no, sorry“ evokes desperate facial expressions. Nevertheless they don’t ask us to leave right away, instead we communicate with translation apps. Finally we book a Chinese 5 Star cruise ship, the “Hua Xia Shen NV 2” for 1800 Yuan, which is approximately 220€. All meals and 3 land excursions included. That is pretty exactly the price our guidebook states. We start the same evening, great.

Without asking us, the vendor tries to organize the transport of our bicycles – we notice because she asks whether we can fold them… We stop her, we don’t want to take them on board. Confusion for a short while, then everybody is relieved: We can simply deposit them in the waiting area of the travel agency – perfect! We are still a bit nervous about the Chinese boat, but positive that everything will work out well.

Now we finally have time for bad mood because of the lost camera. When was the last backup of our videos? What is the price of a new camera and can we maybe get one right here in Chongqing? We don’t really hope to find it, but as there is no better way to spend the waiting time until boarding at 6pm anyway we decide to visit the lasts nights stops again. Together with a picture of the helmet and two translated sentences we explain what we want. First hotel: Nothing. Second hotel: nothing! … Last but one hotel: The receptionist pulls out our helmet from under her desk. And shrieks terribly because of Monis scream of joy! It will take a couple of days until the pure sight of the camera is not enough to make us smile like crazy.

We go for a walk around the city, afterwards there is still plenty of time left. So we try to find an English itinerary for the boat – and surprise: The “Hua Xia Shen NV 2” is listed as the “Chinese Goddess 2” on web pages of international Travel agencies. One of the most modern international boats! How different two days can be! We start to suspect that main difference between the Chinese and the international boats might be the travel agency, which you do your booking with.

Full of anticipation we pick up our carry on baggage at the travel agency – we leave most of our gear at with our bicycles – and walk to the docks. It is easy to find: All the boats leaving today are tied in one row behind each other. We are supposed to go on board between 6 and 8pm, at 9 pm we start sailing towards the gorges. On board we are welcomed by the best English we heard since long time, deny the option of upgrades and move into our “tiny” 18 square meter cabin. Special food wishes, e.g. vegetarian, vegan or allergies, can be made now. As the first dinner is not included we had eaten a pot of noodles before boarding, we supposed this might be as delicious but cheaper. Which is absolutely correct: We only “pay” with selfies taken while we slurp the pasta. Maybe our faces will be on the reataurants publicity soon? We are happy and grateful for the invitation and wonder again: Just how different can two days be? The dinner buffet on board would have cost us 58 yuan p.P. 

After our usual hotel arrival routine: Spread everything in the room, do our laundry and enjoy a shower we go on discory tour on the boat. Besides several dining halls there is also a sauna, Spa (Massages start at 200 Yuan, we decide to save the money), some souvenir and snack shops, Majong rooms, a cinema and a sun deck with a bar. Here we enjoy the night scenery sailing out of Chongqing.

The next morning our alarm clocks are a phone call, after the announcement that breakfadt has been served via the speekers. The breakfast is a mix of typical Chinese breakfast: Spicy noodles, dumplings, scrambled and boiled eggs, sausages, glibbery warm wheat drink and additional european style breakfast: Delicious sweet pastry, fresh roasted toast, jam, fruits, juice, coffee and tea. Now it becomes obvious: We are the only non-Chinese passengers on board. Plus, we are also the only passengers for who the table has been set not only with chopsticks but also with knife, fork and spoon. As soon as we hear English from the speakers we know they only address us!

The lunch is buffet style as well, we try almost all the dishes – among them duck in orange juice! Of course the staff notices immediately tthat we had stated being vegetarians at the check-in – oups! We try to explain that we eat mostly vegetarian, they caught us at one of very few exceptions. No problem. In addition to the food offered anyway we always get an additional plate with vegetables. Included in the price is tea and coffee as well as a small bottle of drinking water every day.

We read beforehand that most land excursions are not worth the money, just the boat tour tot he Smaller Three Gorges is impressive and might be fully booked once we arrive there. So we were happy to hear that this is included anyway, as well as a walk around Fengdu Ghost City and the Three Gorges Dam Site.

We can book the Three Gorges Live Action Show for 290 Yuan p.P., the Mini Three Gorges for 150 Yuan p.P., the White Emperor City for 290 Yuan p.P. as well as a tour on the ship lift of the Three Gorges Dam site for 218 Yuan p.P.

Every evening we get a printout of the next days program, which is quite detailed. It contains interesting information and additional costs are always clearly displayed.

We read a lot about the tour to Fengdu Ghost City – and don’t have high expectations. After breakfast two local tour guides welcome us on board. Ours has the task to do the tour in English for us and at the same time in Chinese for the rest of the group. Surprisingly she succeeds to do so and we learn a lot about the temples, where the deceased start their way to reincarnation or the Day of Judgement – depending on their religion. Beforehand the souls have to undergo a series of tests. We are surprised how much we learn in a entertaining way. And two more surprises wait for us: It is hard to believe how much the Chinese group laughs during the tour and that they all chose the stairs instead of the cable car.

Lots of TV screens display a trailer of a bombastic action show about ancient times, when the region was split in three kingdoms. The main character, Guan Yu was considered the mightiest general back then. We are rather exhausted from the first day and after counting our oney we decide to skip this opportunity.

For the same reasons we decide to sleep in the next orning instead of going to the White Emperor City. Of course after the alarm at 6:30 made us attend the breakfast buffet. As we are awake anyway now and the boat is empty we take a movie of the landscape with our drone. If only the ship was not made of metal, which disturbs our Mavics electronics…

In the afternoon we look forward tot he next excursion. We switch to smaller boats to sail to a flooded valley with stunning Gorges. Our guide describes the rock formations in fluent English – despite not having used the language for 4 years, she apologizes… After about one hour we switch to even smaller boats to get further into the valley. Amazing, to us this valley is almost more beautiful than the Yangtze Three Gorges.

As entertainment on board there is a movie about the Three Gorges Dam – we hope for English subtitles. Completely wrong: There are two cinemas, one is just for the two of us. Somehow we expect the movie to turn out as very positive propaganda – and are surprised by a critical work, which succeeded to balance the negative aspects and risks of the projects and the positive effects. At the captains reception we get a glass of sparkling wine to drink with the captain, a waltz dance and Polonaise drives us away. We do not attend the optional tour to the bridge and a seminar on fresh water pearls.

The highlight of the cruise, the Three Gorges, come down to only 2 Gorges after the dam was built. We pass both on the third day: In the morning around 11 am we sail through Qutang Gorge and in the evening right before sunset at 17:30 we pass the Wu Gorge. The third Gorge was chosen as the position of the dam. The remaining two Gorges are still worth a visit, we cannot judge how much the dam influenced their appearance. A positive surprise is the clear, green water of the Yangtze: Even on many publications we saw a brown, muddy river!

It is hard to tell what is the best time to travel to the Three Gorges. We happened to arrive during winter in the low season. Starting in November the prices are reduced a bit and the boats travel with half the amount of passengers only. Because this is the dry season, the capacities of the dam are fully exploited and the lake is completely full.

During the rainy season in summer the water level is lower to prevent flooding. This means you travel deeper down in the narrow Gorges. Maybe this creates the more stunning views – or maybe it results in a rather ugly experience because you get to watch muddy stone instead of green walls? We cannot tell.

We know for sure that every day at least two ships start in Chongqing and Yichang, and the boats passing us looked similarily luxurious. So there is no need to get here at a specific date.

The cruise ends not very spectacular: The bus takes us tot he Sanxia Tourist center in Yichang around lunch time, where we have to take care of ourselves again, after three days of just following guides. Our last guide seems surprised that we will go to the train station alone and gives us a note with the Chinese name of it – for the taxi driver. And indeed, new tour guides are waiting for most of the Chinese passengers. We, in contrast, walk to the bus stop guided only by our navigation app, hop on bus A1 and for only 2 Yuan we drive all the way to the train station. There we buy our train tickets, we got very professional doing this already: We check the train connections on an English web page and store the results for offline use. Once we arrive at the ticket office we check the displayed remaining seats and choose the train. Now we copy all relevant information to a note app: Train number, departure and arrival time, destination in Chinese and English as well as the type of seats. Then we simply hand her the smartphone with the information, our passports and money. Ready. If something went wrong, complete refund is possible.

We go for lunch and book a hotel in Chongqing – we learnt from our mistakes! Afterwards we walk to the trains. You can imagine the procedures like boarding international flights. 

The next morning we are happy that our bicycles and gear are still waiting for us and feel happy to cycle on. Unfortunately we still have time issues because our visa expire soon and have to go a bit by train. We figured out the only reasonable place to do so is right from Chongqing to Guiyang. So we are off to the train station, buy tickets, check in the bicycles as bulk luggage and byebye megacity! Or maybe not yet – after two hours full of language barriers we realize we that the west train station doesn’t have a luggage check in service. There is only one slow connection to Guiyang per day from the north station, but there we can take our bicycles along. After cycling 50 km in the city traffic we arrive there, pretty exhausted but just in time to check in the bicycles. Another annoying hotel search later we drop into the bed. Chongqing says goodbye to us in the same way it welcomed us. But the cruise was a great experience, definitely worth all the stress!