Oct 18, 2012 - Wednesday 17th October

Late morning excursion to Fengdu, "The Ghost City". Spent a couple of hours wandering around mostly reconstructed copies of ancient temples. Back to the boat for lunch a cruise along the Yangtze to Chongqing in the afternoon. Passed all sorts of barges transporting goods. Docked in Chongqing late that night. 8 milion in the city and 32 million in the metropolitan area!

Aug 28, 2012 - Chengdu & Chongqing

Two stops on my brief tour of China were the cities of Chengdu and Chongqing, both which I reached via train. Chengdu is primarily known as the home of one of the better Panda Research Centers in the world. Pandas are an endangered species that is only found in the wild in China---and in only three of China’s provinces at that. As a result of both human encroachment and of the inherent difficulty pandas have in breeding successfully it is estimated that only about 1,600 of these creatures still survive, including those in zoos worldwide....

Aug 28, 2012 - River Cruise

I spent three days on a cruise of the Yangtze River along a stretch known for it’s scenic beauty. I knew in advance that many tourists consider this a highlight of a visit to China, but I didn’t give it much thought beforehand. Once I arrived dockside in Chongqing the size and features of the boat took me aback. I was expecting a nice but small boat like the one I sailed upon in Halong Bay, Vietnam. It turns out that this was a 6-story boat with accommodations for up to 400 guests and all the features of a cruise boat—including extravagant...

Jul 8, 2012 - The Yangtze River

After an overnight motor downstream on the Yangtze we awoke to bright sunshine and were docked at the a place current,y known as the white city. After completion of the dam the water level has risen by about 175 m at its highest point, going form something that was previously no navigable to a significant tourist attraction. The white City is one of the rebuilt places that was copied once the area affected by the dam was flooded. We didn't venture on shore to see this however as we're told it wasn't! Much to look at. By 11 we were off again...

Jul 7, 2012 - Transit to Wanzhou

This morning was spent whiling away the time until we caught our bus to Wuzhou and the bout for our trip down the Yangtze. Our time was occupied by finding breakfast with wifi connection followed by large Gellatto ice creams to stave off the heat. Chongqing itself does not have a lot to attract it so there wasn't much to see except routine Chinese people going about their routine daily tasks which in its own way was very interesting. At 4 pm we caught a bus which we shared with a Chinese tour group. Unfortunately they had a rather...

Jul 6, 2012 - Chongqing

Today consisted of a very long 7 hour bus ride to Chongqing. We used the public but which meant that anything that could be carried on board, was. This included building supplies, an air compressor and a chicken in a bag. The chicken was kept in the luggage compartment as there was also a dog on board but at each stop a 'chicken check' was done to make sure it was still alive.. The scenery was beautiful on the way but the roads varied a lot from autoroutes to rutted tracks which were actually part of the main highway and served as a detour...

Jun 30, 2012 - On the Yangtze River

Yangtze River Cruise March 25 to 28 ‘[By] October of 2010, the water level in the reservoir of the Three Gorges had reached 175 meters. Therefore, it fundamentally changed Three Gorges from a river now into a huge brand new man made lake.’ ‘After the Three Gorges Project stored water, the ancient Fengjie town and the well-known passageway Yidoumen was submerged in the river regretfully.’ ‘Walking into the new Wushan County, people can strongly feel that the great Three Gorges Project not only brought the resettlement of the town, but also...

May 4, 2012 - Fengdu on the Yangtze River

We had breakfast on the riverboat, a nice buffet with a reasonable variety of good but not great food. With the bodies fortified, we were ready for our first day on the river. The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world behind the Nile and the Amazon. It gets its start in the Tibetan Plateau in the province of Qinghai and flows almost 4,000 miles to the East China Sea near Shanghai. We will see just a small but very scenic portion from the vast city of Chongqing, where we boarded yesterday, to The Three...

May 3, 2012 - Chongqing to Board Riverboat

We had an early bag pull this morning; bags out at 7:00 a.m. But, it’s really great because they take care of transporting the checked bags to the airport and checking them in for us. We just need to pick up at our destination and hand them over again to someone else who takes care of everything; service abounds here. With the bags ready, we had a lovely breakfast at the AZUR Café and we were ready for our sightseeing departure at 8 a.m. Because we did the City Wall last night, we had a relatively easy morning. First stop was at the Great...

Apr 12, 2012 - Chongqing to Xi'an

After four nights on the ship, we disembark and travel to the Chongqing National Zoo to see their Panda Bears who are their for conservation and are part of a breeding program. With a population of almost 33 milion in Chongqing, I think we'll all be glad to fly off to Xi'an in the afternoon. We depart on Sichuan Airlines # 8805 at 13:45 and arrive at 14:55. ............................................................................................................................. 12Apr – Chongqing; Naional Zoo- Panda; flt to Xian We’re off...

Apr 11, 2012 - Yangtze River-Fengdu Ghost City and Fuling

Today we will explore one of the cities lost after the Yangtze was flooded. Fengdu is touted to be the only ghost city in China. ............................................................................................................................. 11Apr – Yangtze; Fengdu City & Fuling Atop Ming Mountain sits Fengdu City ... it’s 350 steps to the top, so we all took our time. For a 60 yuan fee (10 CAD), porters offered to carry people up in a bamboo rickshaw. None of took them up on their offer ... but halfway up I think they’d have...

Oct 13, 2011 - Flying back to Guangzhou.

Flight was pretty uneventful, excepting for a couple of instances of turbulence, enough that hot drinks were not being served for a while, but not enough to be frightening. I was amazed at just how long we flew over snow covered mountains for. It would have been nearly an hour and a half of flying time. That really gave me an impression of the expanse of the Himalayas. Just awesome. We flew from Lhasa to Chongqing, and had about an hour to wait for the next leg of our flight, to Guangzhou.