Slow boat through China

Thrilling gorges soar above you on this swish Yangtze cruise

THERE are not nine million bicycles in Beijing, as Katie Melua sings. There can’t be because there isn’t room for them among the nine million cars clogging the roads. ‘it takes four hours to drive north to south,’ says my guide, Jade, as we join yet another snarl-up.

i am in Beijing for a couple of nights’ sightseeing on my way to cruise the Yangtze River with sanctuary Retreats, but it takes just a couple of hours to learn that in China, size really does matter.

There’s one of the biggest squares in the world (Tiananmen), the largest complex of palaces (the Forbidden City, where the Epic: The famous Three Gorges region on the Yangtze provides respite from Beijing Ming and Qing emperors once lived) and Chairman Mao’s plenty of Chinese dishes — Yichang to Chongqing, is packed on deck pointing out the massive mausoleum. happily none featuring the pig with everything from lessons in highlights of the third-longest

The city is buzzing — but after snouts or tails i spot when we making dumplings to lectures on river in the world. Before engines a few days i’m ready to escape visit a market in Fengdu city. Chinese medicine, and a trip to came along, naked men formed to the peace of the river. some of the boat’s decor is the Three Gorges Dam — the human tractors to pull the boats

sanctuary’s Yangzi Explorer is old-fashioned, but my cabin is largest hydroelectric power upriver. They do a brief demonstration the smallest cruise vessel on the beautifully decked out. i even station in the world. along a tributary of the river (just 124 passengers vs 300 have a day bed by my balcony. as we sail through the famous Yangtze, but the men keep their or more on others). The crew are But there’s no time for dozing. Three Gorges — Xiling, Wu and clothes on. excellent, as is the food, with This four-night cruise, from Qutang — our guide, Max, is Max also tells us about the mysterious 12 peaks in Wu Gorge that, legend has it, were wicked dragons slain by a goddess. sadly, the mist is so thick we can’t even see the peaks.

My fellow passengers are predominantly americans with some British and Chinese.

The scenery along the river bank is dramatic, forested, dotted with houses, and with perilous-looking roads clinging to steep cliffs. But often we sail past unsightly high-rise cities built to rehouse the 1.3 million people whose homes were flooded by the dam, which raised water levels by 113 metres.

after their ugly grey, it is a relief to sail into the neon nirvana of Chongqing. it’s the end of the cruise, but i stay on in the city to visit the Dazu rock carvings — 10,000 of them up to seven metres in height. They were chiselled out some 800 years ago and depict the life and death of Buddha and the horrors of hell.

it’s like reading a book, says my guide, but this being China, it is — of course — an epic.