1. 36 AAA Traveler • January/February 2015 AAA.com/Traveler
Journey Into
MIDDLE KINGDOM
A Yangtze River cruise offers a seamless look at
China’s past and present.
ON A RIVER JOURNEY THAT’S BARELY BEGUN, I already feel
centuries and miles removed. I awoke in Shanghai, a sky-scraping
megalopolis of 13 million that flaunts China’s capitalistic prowess.
Now, as evening settles in, I’m shuffling along ancient stone pathways
amid a hodgepodge of wooden shops and rickety canal guesthouses in
Wuzhen, a whimsical water world 2,000 years in the making.
36 AAA Traveler • January/February 2015 AAA.com/Traveler
By Ted Alan Stedman

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Wuzhen is the epicenter of ancient water towns along the
Yangtze River delta—and my first shore excursion during
a nine-day river cruise on the Yangtze from Shanghai to
Chongqing. Like China’s own Venice, the Xizha (west) district
is hemmed by canals and drips with sights, sounds and aromas
that hearken back to its days as a Qing Dynasty silk producer.
Artful stone bridges, alluring courtyards, and workshops
producing soy and silk appear as they did centuries ago in this
self-described “living fossil of ancient Oriental civilization.”
Without garish signs or noisy traffic, Wuzhen’s charms are
subtle. I sip tea in the glow of oil lamps at a quaint guest house,
while elders banter in front of shops run by their middle-aged
children. On the main waterway, a parade of skiffs with colorful
lanterns glides silently. It’s a charming snippet of pre-industrial
China—precisely what I was hoping for during my 1,400-mile-
long Yangtze journey.
The world’s third-longest waterway flows 3,900 miles from the
Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea. It’s been the backbone
of the Middle Kingdom’s water transport system for thousands
of years, coursing through 18 provinces and connecting 700-
some tributaries. As I head west, the lower Yangtze seems
beyond immense, like the Mississippi multiplied threefold.
The cappuccino-colored Yangtze flows leisurely through a flat
landscape where centuries of sampans and crossing barges have
given way to mammoth freighters and bridges.
In Nanjing, I explore the famed 600-year-old city wall
designed during the Ming Dynasty. The remarkably intact
brickwork was constructed with a recipe that used cooked
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Shanghai skyline
Nanjing ConfuciusTemple

3. 38 AAA Traveler • January/February 2015 AAA.com/Traveler
rice and lime, which is “why the city wall has stood for so long,”
explains my guide. It’s also helped preserve inscriptions on
individual bricks considered important cultural relics. Running
my fingers over their forms, I learn that two calligraphy styles
were used: one by scholars and officials and the other by artisans
and workers. Throughout six dynasties, characters gradually
developed into elegant symbols traced to today’s modern Chinese.
From Xuanwu Gate, I drop into the ancient city’s busy Old
Town district and jostle down a crowded promenade of shops,
cafés and artisan cubbyholes along the Qinhuai River. To discover
the centerpiece here, look no further than the adoring Chinese
tourists flocking to Fuzi Miao, the famous Confucius Temple built
in 1034 that serves as the seat of Confucius study. In the nearby
Dacheng Hall, 38 exquisite panels of jade, gold and silver illustrate
the life of Confucius, while his large bronze statue gazes with a
pensive smile.
River miles on the Yangtze reveal a country in transition.
The waves of scenery alternate among sprawling rice farms,
shantytowns and commercial ports. But storied sights are never
far. On day three, I visit Jiuhuashan, the “Mountain of the Nine
Lotuses,” considered a sacred place for Buddhist pilgrims. This is
the panorama known to any armchair visitor—a succession of 72
turreted peaks approaching 6,000 feet, cloaked by the distinctive
broad Hwangshan pines that have inspired so many influential
Chinese landscape painters. Walking the steep terraced stone
trails is like stepping into their paintings, with an enchanting vista
at every turn. True to its “Sea of Clouds” reputation, though, the
mountain gradually becomes enveloped by a mercurial fog that
glows pink from the setting sun.
There’s feigned apprehension aboard on day six as Yichang
appears off the bow. This economic centerpiece of western Hubei
Province marks the entrance to the San Xia (Three Gorges):
Xiling, Wu and Qutang. The Three Gorges are the most scenic
section of the navigable Yangtze, a 75-mile steep-walled corridor
that historically claimed one in 20 boats with its treacherous
rapids and shoals. But with 18 years and plenty of Chinese
audacity, the river was “tamed” by the controversial $59 billion
dam project in 2009, altering land and lives with a 3,861-square-
mile canyon reservoir. Flood control and clean energy versus
relocation of 1.5 million people and ecological loss? Pros and cons
are widely discussed. What’s clear for the 60-plus commercial
vessels operating along the Yangtze: at 607 feet tall and 1.8 miles
wide, Three Gorges Dam has become another highlight—
certainly the most imposing of the journey.
After sailing 40 miles through narrow Xiling Gorge to the
Three Gorges Dam ship locks, the ship emerges and continues
into Wu Xia (Witches Gorge), where steep cliffs with mist-
covered summits rise 3,200 feet to block nearly all sunlight.
At Wushan, I embark on a smaller vessel into the Daning
River’s dramatic “Three Little Gorges,” a zigzagging 31-mile
journey through a chasm of natural beauty and historic artifacts.
In Dragon Gate, I see remnants of the Ancient Plank Road
The Dazu Rock CarvingsBridge along theYangtze River

4. AAA Travel • 866.222.1357 AAA Traveler • January/February 2015 39
chiseled 50 feet above the river. In Misty Gorge, the scenery
transforms from terraced hillsides to rocky peaks and caves,
including Fairy Maiden Cave. On a long, layered formation said
to resemble a dragon, a 2,000-year-old relic appears: the Iron
Coffin, made of wood that’s turned black with age, suspended
in a shallow alcove seemingly impossible to reach. When I enter
Emerald Gorge, the water takes on an almost neon hue, while
the broadened slopes are verdant green and home to chattering
Rhesus monkeys.
Two more river days are filled with prominent sites. White
Emperor City, a refuge for nascent kings and poets, sits stoic
and regal overlooking the western end of spectacular Qutang
Gorge. Fengdu, the “Ghost City” dedicated to Chinese mythology,
captivates with its shrines, temples and monasteries on Ming
Mountain. Then, quite suddenly and anticlimactically, the journey
ends in Chongqing, and our cruising entourage peers one last
time at the Yangtze River, then each other, before scattering.
As I did at the journey’s beginning, I carouse the corridors
of the journey’s end. Think of Chongqing as China on steroids.
The hazy mountain town has swelled to an astonishing
33 million people and serves as the seat of central government
for 27 counties and cities. But its enclaves seem a world removed
from its concrete high rises. I visit the zoo and see its most famed
residents: the giant pandas that have caretakers ecstatic with
their successful breeding. The city’s old town district, Ci Qi Kou
(Porcelain Village), is wonderfully intact, and I wander for hours
taking in the traditional shops and sampling exotic foods (fried
grubs?) along the crowded flagstone pathways.
A fitting conclusion to my trip is a short drive to the Dazu Rock
Carvings, a World Heritage Site containing some 30,000 beautiful
statues from the 9th to 13th centuries carved along a limestone
cliff face. The exquisite colorful figures meander for 1,000 feet and
depict an epic journey chronicling Chinese history and religious
beliefs.
“To understand China, you must travel from past to present,”
my bespeckled guide says from beneath his long Fu Manchu
mustache. “It’s much like your journey on the Yangtze.” I couldn’t
agree more.
600-year-oldcitywalldesignedduringtheMingDynastyinNanjing
Great Hall of the People in Chongqing
PHOTOBYTEDALANSTEDMAN