My first venture into Sichuan province involves a series of bus journeys north from Qujing the largest town of eastern Yunnan. Seriously steep and barren mountains, traversed on sub-standard road surfaces, are followed by the spectacular descent down into the Yangtse river valley.   Cross the river into Sichuan, and the road onward runs […]

  Sleeping through Gorges The ship cruises a hundred miles upstream through the hours of darkness. When I awake around dawn the journey’s nearly over, soon my destination Fengjie comes into view. I have completed a Three Gorges cruise without seeing a single gorge.

  To view the Three Gorges of the Yangtze river the standard itinerary has embarkation at Chongqing, followed by a down-river cruise, so I decided to start from the other end, the city of Yichang in the west of Hubei province, and work my way upstream.