Day One
You will fly to Chongqing in Sichuan province, arriving in the evening where you will board the Yangzi Explorer, the newest and best boat on the Yangzi River. (Yangzi Explorer – Royal Cabin) (D)

Day Two
Sailing downstream, you will soon arrive at Shibaozhai, a red, multi-storied temple built during the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-96). The addition of a wooden staircase has made a substantial improvement on the original means of ascending this cliff-face temple - a few hundred years ago, pilgrims only had an iron chain to help them proceed up the sheer rock-face to this temple celebrating the heroes of the Three Kingdoms period.

In the afternoon, the boat will dock by the town of Wanxian. Depending on the water level and the allotted time for the boat's passage through the Three Gorges, you may have the opportunity to visit this town. You will be struck by the architectural influence of the West in the form of two local European-style churches, one Catholic, the other Protestant. These hark back to the first Jesuit visitors to Wanxian and to this port town's controversial incorporation within the foreign Treaty Port system in 1902. As dusk settles, the town's rattan and cane market comes alive as buyers and sellers noisily negotiate the sale of handmade summer beds, hats, fans, straw shoes, furniture and basketry. (B, L, D)

Day Three
Approaching Qutang Gorge, the first of the famous Three Gorges, requires an early morning start. Take a coat and hat with you up on deck, since the wind speeds through the gorge's narrow channel, its rocky banks looming either side in the early morning mist. After breakfast, you will be transferred to smaller boats for an excursion up the gorge at Danning Stream. You might have time for a quick breakfast before the ship soon advances into the second gorge, the Wu Gorge or Shaman's Gorge.

Soon after emerging from this gorge, you will dock at a small port to transfer to smaller boats for a two hour excursion up Shennong Stream, perhaps the most beautiful tributary along this winding stretch of the river. High up on its banking cliff-faces, you will observe another of the Yangzi River's curiosities. The local Ba people, one of China's ethnic minorities, centuries ago buried their dead in long wooden coffins pegged to the gorges' sheer rock-faces. Though many have now been removed to local museums, seeing one or two coffins precariously pinned to the rock, you may well wonder how the coffins were pegged there in the first place. To this day art historians are perplexed by this issue.

In the afternoon, you will advance into Xiling Gorge, the longest and traditionally most treacherous of the gorges that in recent years has been pacified by the Three Gorges Dam downstream. You will not have completed your trajectory through it before you encounter the impressively gargantuan dam, and the daunting scale of this project will dwarf you as your boat passes through the Five Stage Ship Lock. (B, L, D)

Day Four
Having docked, this morning you will take a tour of the Three Gorges Dam, the controversial energy and water conservancy project.  After a tour of the site, you will disembark from your boat at Yichang and fly back to Beijing. (On occasion, there are no flights from Yichang to Beijing in which case you will need to take a three hour car ride to Wuhan airport, whence you will fly to Beijing). (Raffles Hotel) (B, L, D)

Day Five
There is a some time for last minute purchases before your flight home from Beijing international airport. (B)

Please note that B, L, D denotes Breakfast, Lunch Dinner.

Yangzi River tours are done on a private basis only. Visitors interested in a group tour of China, should view our frequent Imperial Tour itinerary.