On Monday The New Yorker Magazine published a series of photos taken along the Yangtze River by photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz. Peter Hessler introduces the photos: Approximately one of every fifteen people on earth lives in the watershed of the Yangtze. At moments, Abdulaziz felt as if each of these four hundred and fifty million individuals…
Yangtze River
Cruising the Yangtze
The website A Luxury Travel Blog recently posted a list of the 4 best cruise ships on the Yangtze River. At almost four thousand miles long, the Yangtze is Asia’s longest river and the third longest in the world. Historically it divides the North and South of China providing a natural barrier against invaders and…
A Three-Star Tourist Boat
The sign above the reception desk on the boarding deck of the ferry said that we were on a designated three-star tourist boat. Once we had settled into our first class rooms and walked around a bit, it was evident that some serious bribes must have been paid for at least two of those stars….
Sailing the Mountain Tops
Our trip up the Yangtze River has been a bit surreal. As we view the hillsides with their villages and occasionally entire cities, we have to keep reminding ourselves that these hills are in fact, the tops of some fairly high mountains that line the shore of what used to be a swiftly flowing river….
A Tale of Two Tickets — The Ferry
“There will be Chinese people on the boat,” said the voice at the other end of the phone line. For the 5th time in as many days this was the response I got from a travel agent I had contacted asking for assistance in booking passage on a local ferry boat to take Noel and…