3 Days on a Boat

Last week, my mom and I went on a three day riverboat cruise on the Yangtze River. Booked aboard a luxury western cruise ship, this tends to be one of the signature attractions in China for many western tourists, oftentimes included in the prepackaged tours. The cruise route begins in the city of Chongqing in Western China, goes downstream through the Three Gorges, past the Three Gorges Dam, ending in Yichang.

I will preface the rest of my review a bit by saying that the Three Gorges were indeed impressive and nice to look at, though it does get repetitive after a while. The "Lesser Three Gorges" along the Daning River, which we viewed on a three hour sidetrip on Day 2, were even more impressive.


Additionally the Three Gorges Dam, which we got to tour on Day 3, really is an amazing feat of engineering. I've been fascinated by the Three Gorges Dam since I had first read about it, and was glad that I got the opportunity to view it firsthand.


But, to be honest, the cruise was ultra-touristic and underscored a lot of the things that I do not like about being a tourist in China.

1) The hordes of Chinese tourists
As the Chinese economy expands, the Chinese middle class grows by the day and with it the number of Chinese middle class tourists. Because of visa restrictions, their opportunities to travel abroad are limited, so they are taking to traveling around China en mass. On the day we departed, there were 4 enormous cruise ships leaving from Chongqing packed with Chinese tourists, with a number of smaller vessels leaving as well. The side excursions were as much about navigating the impermeable sea of loud and pushy Chinese people as they were about seeing the sights. For those that have never been to China before, you must understand that the Chinese people do not grant dominion to the social construct of "waiting in line". The on board dinner buffet line, for example, resembled a mad scramble at a slophouse feeding troth (incidentally, the food also bears remarkable likeness to this). This goes not just for the Yangtze River cruise, but for any of the major Chinese tourist attractions. If you come to China, be prepared... there are a lot of Chinese people here!

2) The Over-Commercialization
Take, for instance, our Day 1 excursion was to some random Chinese "ghost town". I'm no Chinese historian, but I'm pretty sure the whole town was an "attraction" manufactured by the riverboat tourism industry to try to part tourists with their disposable income. To get to the ghost town, you must first walk a gauntlet of Chinese street vendors peddling cheap, mass produced Chinese knick-knacks. This for the benefit of spending more money to tour an entirely forgettable "reconstructed" Chinese temple with "reconstructed" Chinese sculptures and carvings. At one point, they gathered us around a Chinese guy who had left his life as a farmer so he could perform some Chinese ritual rolling around some rock (I don't think it was an actual Chinese ritual) to try to amuse tourists (it wasn't at all amusing) and asking for tips (I didn't give him a tip). I don't begrudge the local people and vendors for trying to make a living, but if you are looking for a glimpse into the authentic lives of rural Chinese, then the Yangtze River cruise is not the place to see it.

3) The Price Gouging
At first, $300 for a three day riverboat cruise may not seem excessive. But you have to remember that this is Asia. In inland China, $300 is more than a month's wages for the average college graduate and could pay for many months of rent. For comparison's sake, for a three day tour of Halong Bay in Vietnam, I paid only $90, got to see more spectacular scenery, didn't have to share a room the size of a jail cell, and didn't have to eat food that looked like it came out of a petri dish. Even Caribbean cruise packages out of California go for significantly less. Then there is the constant nickel and diming along the way. There are charges for coffee and alcohol at significant markups. Massage and acupuncture services that literally go for ten times what it costs on shore, designed to take advantage of westerners that don't know any better. Just to be clear, I am a free market capitalist and am all for everyone charging as much as the market will bear. I am just saying that, in China, there are far better values out there for your entertainment dollar.

The topping on the cake was the cruise asking for a 12% gratuity at the end. If you know me well, you know that nothing puts me in an apoplectic rage faster than service workers expecting a good tip after poor service. Furthermore, this is China. Not once in my four months on the mainland have I been expected to or left a tip, and you can be damn sure that the Chinese tourists were not leaving any tips. Now if the food served on board hadn't been entirely wretch-inducing, if there had been more than one English speaking employee on this advertised-as-English-speaking cruise, and if there had been activities aboard the boat beyond sitting on the deck breathing in the world class Chongqing pollution, then perhaps my attitude would be a little different. Luckily for the employees of China Regal Cruises, my mom is a more benevolent tipper than I am. :)

Given that it also requires you to arrange transportation to Chongqing and from Yichang, going on this cruise ended up being a significant investment of time and money, especially for a traveler with limited time constraints such as my mom.

Maybe I'm just not the cruising type, but in my opinion, our travel time would have been better spent elsewhere.