Going Against the Flow (1 of 4)

Shanghai to Wuhan up the Yangzi River

The Yangzi River is one of the world’s great rivers. Sourced high in the Himalayan mountains and Tibetan Plateau of central Asia and flowing to the Pacific coast, it is steeped with a human history dating as far back as the very origins of Chinese society.

At almost 4,000 miles in length, the Yangzi – or Chang Jiang as it is known in Chinese – is the world’s third longest after the Nile and Amazon rivers. Having grown up in New Zealand, an island nation in the South Pacific where the longest river struggles to create a 300 mile trickle in comparison, both the Yangzi and the concept of long river journeys had become a personal fascination.

I had read travel articles that described the spectacle of rugged mountain peaks and steep, vertical gorges that towered hundreds of meters above the river’s flow. Friends and acquaintances added fuel to the fire, recounting for me first-hand the majestic scenes they had encountered from boat trips along the river. More often than not, these great stories centred upon the Three Gorges – where the Yangzi carves through the rugged mountains of eastern Sichuan province.

However, I instead became interested in traveling the more sedate eastern-most reaches of the river – adjacent to its mouth on the Pacific.

In 1998, my wife Weiping (a native of Shanghai) and I made our first trip together to her homeland. Traveling northwards one evening on the Shanghai-Beijing express, I was offered my glimpse of the Yangzi as the train thundered across the long rail bridge at Nanjing, just as the last gasp of daylight was fading to darkness. Within a couple of minutes we had crossed its wide expanse and while it passed from sight – it definitely did not from mind.

Jiang Yu class ferry

April 2000 found us again in Shanghai. After a four-week stay with family in this, China’s largest metropolis, we boarded a Yangzi ferry boat, imaginatively named the Jiang Yu #7, for the three-day journey upstream to Wuhan in Hubei province.

I had learned gradually that travel in China is always a colourful experience. Be it by train, bus, commercial airliner and now ferry boat; one can always expect sights and experiences that they would never have in the West. We booked a Second Class cabin (First Class is not an option on the lower reaches of the Yangzi), which for about �300 each (US$38.00), covered the 1,000 mile voyage west to Wuhan.

Our accommodation aboard the Jiang Yu #7

Indeed the class structure aboard our ferry was interesting to say the least. Second Class assured us of relatively clean accommodation for two above deck level at the front of the boat with a great view out over the constantly changing river scenery. We had such luxuries as our own television (great if you speak Mandarin), a desk and lamp, air conditioning, a thermos and a basin with working taps. However the pale brown water that came out of the plumbing was pumped straight from the river and stubbornly leaked for three solid days.

While of the squat variety, toilet facilities were communal but nonetheless functional – if a little hard on the nose after the first day out from Shanghai. We stayed clear of the shower – a bare pipe that jutted out of a wall in a lockable cubicle that one presumed was the bathroom.