‘Fancy on the Yangtze’ – or was it? Part 1 – the start of My Yangtze Adventure!

As you know I have recently returned from a fact-finding trip for our ‘Grand Tour of China’ Bucket List package.

I have already blogged about Beijing, the Great Wall, the Walled City of Pingyao and the Pandas of Chengdu!

The last part of this 12-day tour finishes with three nights cruising the Yangtze River.   This I thought was to be the relaxing part of the tour, without many steps, how wrong could I be!

After a 5-hour coach ride, we arrived in the pouring rain in Chongqing.  After dinner to board the Victoria lines MV Katarina and negotiate a hundred plus steps down the quayside in the pouring rain.  There are no lifts and porters will take your bags on sticks.  There is a compulsory tip of 150 Yuan per person that must be paid on boarding.

Once onboard we had a compulsory safety briefing with the Hotel Director who informed us that there were only a handful of westerners cruising and the ship was full with mostly Chinese families as this was the height of their holiday season.

I and my two fellow sales consultants Babs and Gina decided to have a wander around the ship finishing in the bar for our own ‘Welcome aboard drink’!

Our cabins were roomy, very clean and had a small balcony, however, didn’t use this until the afternoon of day two when at last the rain stopped.

We set sail in the pouring rain and left Chongquing and headed towards Fengdu.  This lies on the northern bank of the Yangtze River.  Fengdu got it’s reputation as the ‘Ghost City’ in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Babs, Gina and I disembarked after breakfast for the optional excursion to the ‘Ghost City of Fengdu’, treated as the ‘destination for the soul of deceased people’.  We headed with our guide over the floating bridges, through another ship, over more floating bridges and then climbed 100 plus steps.  We were then taken by golf carts to the ticket centre and given a choice to either climb the hundreds of steps or take the cable car for 30 Yuan return.  We took the latter option as it was still pouring with rain.

At the cable car, we were literally thrown in and made our way up the mountain.  You don’t have much time to get out at the top and if like me you have mobility issues then you are ‘pulled out’.  If it had been a clear day the scenery would have been spectacular.

You then have 68 steps to climb and then a further 20 before we finally reached the ‘Ghost Temple’.  We were the only three westerners so the guide spoke in Chinese for a few minutes we presumed telling the Chinese members of our group about the temple.  Her English was very good and she gave us a somewhat condensed version which lasted a minute, so maybe the English language is shorter.

The Ghost City is famous for its ancient sites, buildings, statues, and sculptures of ghosts and the netherworld.

This was as far as I could manage on the tour and not wanting to hold the group up I left Babs and Gina to venture further up.  Later they advised there were a great many steps to negotiate!  After spending some time around the temple two young boys asked to have their photo taken with me, this is very common in China, so don’t be surprised or ‘put off’ by it, embrace it.  Their faces say it all!

For me, this was not a trip that was totally suitable for those that have mobility issues as there are many, many sets of stairs and no lifts.  If you need to use a wheelchair or a scooter then you would definitely struggle as your first hurdle would be embarking the ship.  If you had a collapsible wheelchair that you could safely carry down all the stairs, and then up again then you may just manage but you may find yourself confined to the ship for the majority of the time, and if you need to use a scooter then this trip may not be suitable for you.

If you would like any more information on this or any other part of my trip please either message me or email me – [email protected].

More of my adventures to follow.