Chongqing is the upstream starting point for the classic Yangtze cruise. Boats leave from the Chaotianmen docks, at the point where the Jialing meets the Yangtze, and run downstream through the Three Gorges towards Yichang in Hubei, a journey usually completed in three or four days going downstream and longer coming back up.
The route
Leaving Chongqing, the river runs through increasingly mountainous country before entering the gorges themselves. The three main gorges - Qutang, Wu and Xiling - are short but dramatic, with sheer cliffs rising directly from the water and, in places, narrow channels that the boats thread between. Along the way there are stops at sites such as Fengdu with its ghost city, Baidicheng on the cliff above Qutang Gorge, the Lesser Three Gorges on a tributary, and finally the Three Gorges Dam near Yichang, which can be visited from the shore.
The boats
There is a wide range of vessels. At the top end are multi-deck river ships with cabins, restaurants, bars and shore excursions included, aimed at international visitors, with English-speaking guides. In the middle are Chinese cruise ships, comfortable but more basic and conducted largely in Chinese. At the bottom of the range are the ordinary passenger ferries, which still carry people and goods along the river and cost a fraction of the price, though the schedule is unreliable and the accommodation is functional rather than comfortable.
What the dam changed
The completion of the Three Gorges Dam raised the water level behind it by well over a hundred metres, which changed the river profoundly. Whole towns, farmland and many historic sites were submerged or relocated, the current slowed, and the narrowest and most dramatic sections of the gorges became shorter and less enclosed. The scenery that travellers described in the twentieth century no longer exists in the same form, though the gorges remain impressive, and several of the monuments along the way were moved uphill or rebuilt rather than lost.
