The guilty one is Mr. Yinshuo. It was him who one day emailed me an offer to go on this cruise. He also sent me the URL's of his travelogue (see links at the end of this report) . But still, when I booked I didn't have the slightest idea of how wonderful this cruise really would be. Thank you Mr.Yinshuo! We received our tickets weeks before departure however, with the disappointing note, not to bring any swimsuits, since there would be no whirlpool on the deck contrary to info on the official web site.
Thursday 7th. August
We took a taxi on thursday morning for the HongQiao domestic airport in Shanghai. Then we boarded the morning flight, Eastern China's 737 to Chongqing. Chongqing was the wartime capital of the Kuomintang and has a population of about 14 million. Chongqing is one of the four chinese cities which have the status as a special municipal. They are Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing. Perched on two hills overlooking a confluence of two rivers it has a distinctly different character from Shanghai. It's the chief industrial city of south-western China and a harbour city for Yangtze river ships (up to 10.000 tons). High buildings tower everywhere, not with the same frenzy and volume like in Shanghai but very noticeable. Some three hours later, at the Chongqing airport we were approached upon arrival by the local tourist office desk personnel and given information on how to drive by taxi to the harbour where our boat would be waiting. Ria confirmed by calling the boat mobile. Yes, we could leave our luggage with the boat and visit the city before departing at 11 pm. We had a long drive from the airport to the harbour. We passed a city which because of it's hills reminded us of Hongkong island.

When we arrived at the boat quay we had to walk 700 meters to the boat from the taxi parking. There were many locals who appreciated the cooling waters of the Yang Tze. Whole families sat together in swim attire in a cordoned end section of road that was immersed by the river. Cordoned, for now we noticed how wild the river currents were and how wide it was. You wouldn't want to fall in that brownish muddy water by accident. The ships crew saw us from a distance and relieved us from our luggage and brought us to the reception and later our rooms.

In the text below you can click once on the specific floor/deck and a floor plan will appear
We had standard rooms on the third story (bridge deck) . It was quite a decent room, some 2.5 by 3 metres plus a hall and bathroom. Everything was spanking clean, The bathroom had a shower and a closet plus a washbasin and 24 hours warm and cold water. Thick towels, bathrobes, the usual shampoos and soaps. It was after all a five star floating hotel. We had just stayed at another five star hotel in Suzhou, the Sheraton. But I guess floating hotels should not be compared with non floating. Let me say this, compared to a Sheraton it would be a comfortable three stars but the bathroom chrome utilities and other amenities were all functioning and spotless clean, the TV, the radio, the safety locker, the small refrigerator, the light, TV/radio panel in the midst of our twin beds was functioning, the curtains were clean, the carpeting was clean, the bed linens were impeccable clean and the cabin was made up almost twice daily. The white bathrobes and white slippers were spotless and the floor was sloping since this was a boat. The room smelled ok, except for two designated places on the ship, everything was nonsmoking. There were also a couple of suites on the third floor, with a sitting room. I almost forgot to mention the telephone facilities which we were rightly told to use with discretion, you would be able to call wherever in the world, for a price of course, which might not agree with your budget. Experienced travelers know this same story concerning hotel telephones.

The ship had a reception and large dining room on the first floor (main deck) . Excuse me, I should say deck instead of floor, cabin instead of room, it's a boat after all. A nightclub on the second (promenade deck), a conference, game room and shop on the fourth (recreation deck) and a gazebo on the upper (sun) deck . On every deck there were cabins. The lower decks were for the crew, personnel etc. The boat was 5500 tons and was so far the largest on the river, at least we didn't meet any other larger boat during that particular 3 days cruise.

We left our luggage and went by taxi to the centre of the city which tried hard to be like Shanghai. Shopping malls and lots of people just gawking around and enjoying being in the centre of a new well lit experience I guess. The brightly lit and air conditioned shopping malls were boring in architecture but very surprising in the goods the shops were selling. One floor (sport city) had almost fifteen sport stores selling the latest in sporting clothing, shoes and rackets etc. The quality was A1, so were the designs and they had so many "buy me" things. The T-shirts, the shoes, the goods, even better than anywhere even Shanghai. How could that be? Just tell me: when did you walk in and out Nike, Reebok, Basics, Adidas, Diadora, Puma, and many more shops I can't even remember, on just one floor? All real stuff, no haggling and again you would be excused if you're turned insane and bought everything upon reading the prices. Well I just bought three pair of Adidas socks, real thick, for one dollar. Of course the shoes downstairs were beckoning at Grace. But we came here for the boat cruise remember, So we had a very good Teriyaki meal. Portions of meat and shrimps and vegetables and rice fried right in front of you, delicious.

At 11 pm we boarded the boat and went to sleep. A deep grunting noise told us the boat was sailing (no sails but that's the term for a boat).

Index page

YangTze the second day

YangTze the third day

YangTze the fourth day

Links