Wow..... Jiejie.... very impressed by your range of knowledge!!

I'm in Guilin now. It looks like it's going to start raining everyday starting Wednesday. Are the rice terraces or any activity on the Li River worth doing in the rain?

Li River such as rafting, yes. Terraces, I'd say no. This assumes steady all day rain. If it's a mix of light sprinkles/sporadic light rain plus cloudiness, both still worth doing but prioritize the Yangshuo-Xingping section, or the Yulong river. The activity I wouldn't do if it's raining is any climbing that involves wet and slippery rocks.

For what its worth I did the 3 gorges in September. I took one of the more expensive cruise operators. Didnt see the value at all. Most of the sailing was done at night except for the 3 gorges which only took about half a day so missed a lot of the scenery if there is any.

Rest of the trip was moored at a temple and the next day took a side trip that wasnt exciting. Could have flown to yichang, had a quick look at the dam and spent 3 days sitting in a hotel and had as much excitement.

Guilin and the Li river is better mainly because you see and do more without the ripoff of being on the cruise ship.

It seems the fast boat option is long gone and the shortest cruise is 2N/2D on a domestic boat.

I'm looking to travel next month and would welcome any advice, starting with my frantic itinerary:

Day 1: Arrive around 06:00 on the new Hainan LAX-CKG flight. (Look for my review when I return!) Day trip to Wulong Nat'l park.
Day 2: Tour to Dazu caves, spending the 2nd night in Chishui.
Day 3: Take an afternoon/evening bus from Chongqing to board the boat at Wanzhou.

Day 4: On the boat - highlight visit being the Lesser 3 gorges.
Day 5: Quick morning tour through the 3 gorges dam site so I can continue on to Jingzhou and overnight in Wuhan.

Questions:
- Do I just book (First class) once I arrive in Chongqing, two days before departure?

- Day of departure, I'll spend a half day in Chishui and leave after lunch, then catch a bus from Chongqing to Wanzhou, departing around 17:00. Is this enough time?

- There seems to be slightly different itineraries even among the domestic boats - is there any way to get a newer boat that skips the kitschy side-trips?

Just lost a long post which I can't recreate right now. Cutting to the chase: yes the hydrofoils were discontinued in 2015 once the expressway on the north side of the Yangtze was completed linking Chongqing to Yichang and river towns in between. Bus between these points, coupled with a local boat trip out of Wushan (for 3 little gorges) or Badong (for Shennong Stream) might be an alternative to your cruise.

Your itinerary is unworkable, there is no way you can go in all different directions and get to all these places on your list, even traveling "frantically." You need to decide on priorities. Gut feel is that you can do
Dazu + Chishui + Wulong then fly or train Chongqing to Wuhan directly. Or Dazu + Yangtze and maybe get Jingzhou in. But not all of it. And once you decide, these days have to be reorganized to account for the realities of how long you need to do the intercity, local transfers, and to actually have any meaningful time at these various places.

A 2 day/2 night boat sounds unrealistic--if you have actually located one of these, please share. And it would have to be sailing in your time frame and be stopping in Wushan. Wanzhou as a start point instead of Chongqing presents further problems just in getting there--lengthens time on the road which offsets shorter time on river. Remember that in November--if that's when your trip is--the River is subject to a lot of fog which can interfere with visibility.

Big sis must be referring to this post:
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntr...e-river-cruise

(You can still follow this plan with buses as jiejie mentioned. For example, there's a 4.5 hour bus from CQ to Wushan that departs several times a day. Or you can take the high-speed train from CQ to Badong and just do Shennong stream (Goddess brook), which looks like the real highlight of any Yangzi cruise.)

Personally, I want to experience the rawness of the river, so am going to take the 2.5 day, 2 night cruise. According to a local travel agent, departures for my day leave CQ by bus at 14:00 to catch a boat from Fengjie.

http://www.yangtzedream.com/itinerary3Days.htm

First class on these domestic boats is like a one star motel, and one reviewer complained about rats. Kinda reminds me of the 1990s slow boats described in the excellent book River Town. - Part of the experience I want, but most other FTers may pass.

Thanks for pointing out the insanity of my previous itinerary. (I only have 1 week to pack in all this + Huangshan, before visiting family in Shanghai the 2nd week.) So dropping Wulong, my schedule is still crazy, but I think manageable:

Day 1: Dazu tour departing CQ around 08:30. My Hainan flight is 90% on-time, and they'll have a limo to shuttle me after I land at 06:00. After Dazu, I'll take buses and taxis directly to Chishui, spending the night there.

Day 2: All day in Chishui. Then catch the last bus to CQ.

Day 3: Chow down on CQ noodles for breakfast and then catch the bus to the cruise boat.

After arriving at the 3 Gorges / Yichang on Day 5, I can easily catch a high speed to Wuhan on the same day.

If you want to see as much as possible in 5 days, I think this is the best itinerary, assuming fog doesn't mess up the cruise schedule. Hope I'm right...

If you are going to hire a private car/driver to take you from airport to Dazu, that will help. I'd go directly to the premier Dazu site of Baodingshan and forget the rest. I doubt if there's a direct Dazu-Chishui bus but there is definitely a Dazu-Luzhou bus (looks like last one is at 15:00) and you can always hire someone at Luzhou to take you the rest of the way to Chishui. You'll have to pick and choose what you want to see at Chishui since you may not have time to do all of the feature spots in that area. Double check that bus/boat departure information--something isn't making sense of the timing of CQ bus departure with that cruise description you provide. You may want to take one of the first (07:30, 08:00) buses CQ to Fengjie if that's your departure point--journey is about 5 hours. That would give you time to locate the dock, the boat, and then have a wander around Fengjie.

On the Yichang end, the boat definitely docks just upstream of the Dam. Yes, you should have enough time to get to Wuhan by high speed that evening. Skipping Jingzhou.

Please come back with a trip report, especially the boat details and maybe a contact for that. While most FT'ers aren't into cheap Chinese motels and rats, a few might be up for this if it means blitzing down the river and saving hundreds of USD over the usual cruises. I do hope you get decent weather.

Sounds good, jiejie. - but keep in mind my return report is going to be biased, because I believe in experiencing the river the authentic way! (i.e. not in a floating Hilton) - So far, I only see one major downside with these shorter domestic cruises - not being able to see both the Little 3 gorges and Shennong stream. - I guess most Chinese people aren't too excited about seeing loin-clothed peasants pulling your longboat upstream the traditional way. (Chinese people seem to like history but they also shun things that are not modern. - a seeming paradox - anyways, totally OT.)

Btw, where do you get those bus schedules?
Also, if you've been to Chishui, can you suggest the place I should go first when I arrive in the afternoon? - avoiding backtracking as much as possible on the 2nd day.

I don't think anybody here will have a problem with straightforward reports that show the more basic side of China travel. Quite a number of us actually have experience traveling this way in China--hitching rides on the backs of farmer's trucks, taking the local chicken bus, etc. (I for one, have to veer towards this travel style for lack of budget!) Even for those who prefer to travel in floating Hilton style, reports are a way to get vicarious thrills.

As for the side trips, the way to do those would be to take the boat to either Wushan or Badong and hop off and then grab a spot in the boat doing the side trip. Chinese tourists definitely do Chinese cruises (same as the western-oriented boats, just on simpler boats for less money) and they definitely do side trips including the Shennong Stream with the Tujia people pulling the small longboat upstream. But those Chinese cruises take the same amount of time. What you are taking seems to be simply a faster version that cuts some of the frills and side trips--something between a ferry and a cruise.

Bus schedules: I don't know of any in English that are reliable or deal with non-famous cities. Can you read Chinese and input characters for searching? Ctrip has on its Chinese site, a bus ticket tab where you can look up schedules for the relatively near future and get prices, etc. But it doesn't necessarily have every possible journey in it. I use a variety of sites since some are better for some regions than others. I usually just input into browser search the string of Chinese characters for "bus" "city 1" "to" "city 2" and then see which of the search results seems the most up to date. But....very important...nothing is as good as finding out directly from the bus station, either by visiting the day before travel or calling over a day or so beforehand if feasible, and finding the straight scoop.

Chishui: I'm not sure you will have time to see anything on the day you arrive. Backing up the schedule. If you arrive on time into CKG at 06:00, get processed and leave the airport 08:00 by private car. Arrive Dazu Baodingshan at 10:30 (maybe). Baodingshan and adjacent Shengshousi Temple, finishing up at 12:30-ish. Back to Dazu bus station about 13:00. Get 13:30 or 14:00 bus. Arrive Luzhou about 17:00, to Chishui by 18:00. I simply don't see you doing much more than Dazu + a bunch of transport on Day 1.

jiejie, you're right that Chishui park closes at 5.

I did some research and as of now, cruises (domestic or luxury) are the only way to see the river. Otherwise, I would have just taken the high speed train from CQ to Badong, and caught a ferry from Badong to Yichang.

I don't think it would have been that simple, even if you could take a ferry. The Badong train station is nowhere close to Badong city on the river. Connection between the two is by winding mountain, hair-raising road taking better part of 3 hours. Frankly, I think the area in SW Hubei province--around Lichuan and Enshi--is much more interesting (scenically and culturally) than most of the other stuff on your list, but you seem to be very focused.

Do come back and tell us what you ended up doing. It's possible that once you get to Chongqing, you can ferret out a boating possibility that just can't be unearthed from elsewhere.

Trip Report - 2 night Chinese cruise - Recommended
 

It's 6:15am and 80's style Western music starts piping over the tinny ship speakers. 15min later, the tour guide tells everyone to wake up for breakfast. You hear shuffles from your neighboring cabins. <More announcements to get breakfast before the restaurant closes.> The shower hot water is turned off - it's only turned on for an hour in the evenings. So I splash some warm water on my face from the sink and finish the bread I brought onboard. The tour guide now announces we will leave at 7:30. - I swear she told us 7a earlier - why else did we wake up so early for?! Oh well - at least everyone is ready to disembark on time - while we hear the tour guide droning on and on telling us to walk slowly. Hmm, I wonder if the tour guide is just playing a recording? - she does sound a bit hoarse.

So this is a very Chinese tour, but hey - you're in China! Good thing that Chinese people all congregate together around the guide's blaring speakers, so you can just wander off a bit and have much of the scenery to yourself. I was amazed that 95 passengers all congregated at the back of the boat when we passed the first two gorges. (You pass the last one, Xiling gorge, at night.) So four of us had the entire front of the boat to admire the scenery. I bet you won't get that on your luxury boats!

Itinerary
We left Chongqing around 14:00 for the 5 - 6h drive to Fengjie. Along the way, we stopped at Quyang longevity [& shopping] village - fine enough to stretch your legs for 30 min. Also stopped at a roadside service center for another 30 min - I recommend getting the Chinese duck "confit" for dinner.

Night 1 onboard.

Next day, visit White Emperor City after an early wakeup. Unless you've read the Three Kingdoms classics, this will seem generic. Anyways, it's a pleasant stroll, and staying on the boat would be depressing. By midmorning, you're back on the boat and pass the first gorge.

Midafternoon, they take you to one of the side streams where the gorges are tall and impressive. This was called Shennong Xi, which leads me to think it's near the Shennong Stream excursion that the luxury tours visit. However, you ride a motorized dragon boat, rather than the old-fashioned long rafts rope-pulled by peasants. During the 20 - 30 min ride upstream, the local tour guide performs standup comedy - kinda like those skits they do on CCTV for the New year extravaganzas. Finally, you reach a floating dock where you're supposed to get off and take lots of pictures. Next, there's a CONCERT - everyone gathers around the singing guides and cheers/claps them on. I guess you're never going to escape karaoke while in China. :eek: On the way back, the guide is now hawking all sorts of Chinese herbs and our group is snapping it all up. And you thought Americans go crazy for their Thanksgiving holiday sales! The plus to all this is that I get the small outdoor part of the boat pretty much to myself. It's all pretty funny if you're the kind of person that's open to different experiences.

We get back on the cruise boat late afternoon to catch the Wu gorge before the sun slowly fades. (Everyone gathers on the back of the boat again. ) Aside from dinner and TV, there's nothing to do on this boat (unrelated, but I was on a Russian cruise boat that featured a strip club), so everyone goes to sleep early. Hence, the early wakeups are not bad at all!

2nd day, you wake up early again and visit Quyuan hometown, which is totally unremarkable. I think this is done mainly so the fog is cleared up by the time we visit the 3 Gorges dam. After the tour, you take a bus to Yichang. Note that your tour guide will ask everyone on the first day - and you can buy a ticket for the bus that goes directly from the dam to Yichang high speed rail station. That way, you get to the station by noon, and it's easy to see Jingzhou on the same day before ending up in Wuhan for the night.

Logistics
I ended up booking directly with a Chinese travel agent and paying 1090Y + 200Y, all excursions included. Other English-speaking agents charge just $20 more total, and you aren't forced to use Wechat pay when making a deposit. The 200Y (officially paid to the guide after getting on the bus) got me an onboard upgrade from 2nd to 1st class.

(Also, at this time of year, 99% of all tourists are Chinese - I heard the luxury boat making announcements in Chinese. I saw that the small group of Westerners on the Victoria Anna luxury boat got their own English-speaking guide. My tour guides, of course, would be hard pressed to translate into English, so be sure to plan everything in advance and understand your itinerary.
If you're set on going the foreign tourist route, it will cost more and the shortest option is a 3 Night cruise. )

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For these cruises priced thousands of dollars must be the ones that include international flights, hotels, and sightseeing in China. I personally think the current Yangtze cruise prices are quite reasonable, I recently traveled to the Three Gorges using yangtze.com I paid US$415 X 2 = US$830 for two of us traveling down from Chongqing to Yichang on a Yangtze gold cruise. It has 3 nights accommodation, and 4 meals plus 3 breakfasts. We visited Three Gorges Dam, Fengdu ghost city, and Lesser Three Gorges. A pair of comfortable walking shoes and maybe a hat is definitely recommended. We drink only bottled water, everything worked out well. and by the way, the food is much better than the pictures above.