Be prepared to be overwhelmed.
Especially in the great cities, today’s China is dynamic, optimistic and changing rapidly and — in part due to preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics — before your very eyes.
If you’re expecting Beijing and Shanghai to be dour expressions of Marxism, cities where bicycles compete with rickshaws for space and where uniformed personnel monitor your every move, you’re thinking of a different place and time.
“I didn’t expect it to be this clean or this organized or this friendly or this advanced, in terms of the architecture,” said Michael Diamond of Toronto, here on the Viking tour. “I’m blown away.”
“And the clothing,” said Tony Pacheco of Teaneck, N.J., one of the Uniworld people. “I had this preconception of this Maoist-uniform country. They look just like us.” For tourists, China today means bilingual street signs and menus, public toilets (enough of them) that no longer make us gag, subway trains with announcements in English, hotels that rival the world’s best and lots of smiles.
In Beijing and Shanghai and other big cities, it also means traffic jams at any hour and, when conditions are just right, air that’s just wrong. That includes restaurants, especially restaurants full of locals, where smoking is not only allowed but seemingly obligatory.
They also don’t recommend you drink the tap water. And except in department stores (and sometimes not even there) you never, ever pay the price on the tag . . .
But the food is wonderful, the beer is smooth, the Wall is Great, the patience with foreigners seems unending, and the welcome feels sincere.
Brush up your chopsticks.
– – –
To cruise or not to cruise?
That’s a good question.
Without a doubt, in terms of promise fulfilled, the four nights afloat on Viking’s Century Sky were this tour’s most satisfying segment.
The six-level ship, in early April carrying about half its 306-passenger load, was comfortable and well-appointed. Cabins were generously sized, service was enthusiastic and efficient, food was excellent, and there were enough diversions (daily tai-chi, a mah jongg class, a vegetable-carving demonstration, even a bingo night) to satisfy folks who need diversion.
Primary attraction was, of course, the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges, plus the Lesser Gorges on a Yangtze tributary.
While all those Gorges, greater and lesser, remain scenically interesting, the rising of the river created by the massive Three Gorges Dam project — launched in 1992 and due for completion next year — has somewhat diminished their wondrousness. (Yes, we got a tour of the dam site. Big dam.)
The higher water has also inundated most of the picturesque villages that stood on the river’s lower banks and forced relocation of 1.3 million Chinese.
One of these villages, Fengdu, 12 years ago had a population of about 500. Today, that Fengdu is under water. Gone. Drowned. Towering above the site is Fengdu New Town, which in six years has grown from nothing to a boomtown of 90,000, a mixed population of displaced farmers and entrepreneurs taking advantage of tax breaks.
The new city, which somehow looks like it’s been there for generations, yielded the most enchanting excursion of the entire Viking tour. There, passengers were greeted by songs from a local chorus (including “Jingle Bells” and “Red River Valley”) that evolved into a singalong, exposed to street food (including, for those so inclined, marvelous dumplings and noodles and a sample of shredded pig’s ear in spicy sauce) and treated to a leisurely walk through a farmers market area — all of which generated mutual good feelings and knockout photos.
But only about half the passengers did the town; others chose a second option, a walk through the nearby Snow Jade Cave — pretty, but just another cave — and came back disappointed.
“Those were two very different excursions, if you will,” said Natalie Moy of Western Springs, who did the cave. “It would’ve been nice to have been able to do both.”
So is a Yangtze River cruise essential to a first (and perhaps only) China experience? No.
Is it a pleasant, somewhat enlightening break between land-based sightseeing in Shanghai, Xian and Beijing?
Sure. And Viking did it well.
— Alan Solomon
– – –
On a tour, little things mean a lot
Sometimes the differences are in the details.
Before in-country flights on the Viking tour, guide Francis warned us that in China pilfering from checked baggage can be a problem and urged us to use locks. That launched a run to the hotel gift shop, whose supply quickly sold out.
Before in-country flights on the Uniworld tour, guide Li issued the same warning. Then he walked down the aisle of the bus, handing out free locks.
More:
– The Viking coaches were equipped with bottled water. Price: about 35 cents a bottle. The Uniworld coaches were equipped with bottled water. Price: free.
– On all flights within China, assigned seating was random, separating couples and families — and that’s how we flew with Viking. With Uniworld, Li collected the boarding passes after they were issued, arranged them by location, then redistributed the passes so couples and families were seated together.
– Uniworld, on the way to the Great Wall, made a short detour and stop so we could see and photograph the Olympic Stadium under construction. Viking, which could have, did not.
– Uniworld, after seeing the Beijing Opera, drove us past Tiananmen Square at night so we could see it lighted up, a dazzler. We never saw Tiananmen’s night lights with Viking.
– Uniworld, in Xian, took us atop the old city wall, higher than the Great Wall and one of the best-preserved in China. Viking skipped the wall entirely.
– Uniworld took us up to the observation deck of Shanghai’s iconic Oriental Pearl Tower, which provided perspective of the city. Viking, instead, took us to the Shanghai Museum, a fine collection of ancient jade, porcelain and other artifacts of limited interest to us foreigners.
– The Uniworld guide, alone, offered us free use of his international cell phone for quick calls home. He also offered us use of his laptop for checking email.
– Viking, in Chongqing at the end of its cruise, took us to the local zoo to see its pandas, part of the published itinerary. There was no panda stop on the published Uniworld itinerary — but guide Li, after putting it to a vote, made time anyway for a morning stop at the Beijing Zoo to see its pandas.
And finally . . .
– Viking took us to see a mini-demonstration of Chinese opera in a hotel meeting room. Uniworld took us to a grand performance in a theater. Both of which just about everyone hated (“She sounded like a cat who’s had her tail stepped on”), but that’s another column.
— A.S.
– – –
VIKING VS. UNIWORLD: HOW TWO TOURS MATCH UP
THE HOTELS
Five stars all around — with reservations.
Viking’s cruise ship, the Viking Century Sky, was first-rate. Its hotels in Shanghai (the St. Regis) and Beijing (the Westin Financial Street) were dazzlers but, unfortunately, away from the more interesting parts of the respective cities. There wasn’t much independent time for exploration with Viking anyway, but it’s a little disappointing when, in Beijing, the closest restaurants to your hotel are a Pizza Hut, KFC and Starbucks. (Note: Viking also uses some closer-in hotels in both cities; if you happen to catch a tour when it uses the Shanghai Westin Bund Center, you’re in luck. We weren’t.)
Our respective Uniworld hotels (the Tianlun Dynasty in Beijing, the Regal International East Asia in Shanghai) were in walk-worthy areas. In fact, the Beijing hotel was right on Wangfujing Avenue, one of the city’s liveliest shopping and restaurant districts and within walking distance of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Several folks took advantage of the Shanghai location to take a post-dinner evening walk to shop and just people-watch.
Edge: Uniworld.
THE DINING
Both tours fed us well.
An annoyance with Viking: Three of its lunches, though not bad, were attached to tour-group “factory” showroom sales pitches (silk, carpets, jade); a Beijing dinner was a rushed touristy experience (and a not particularly tasty one) in a historic but uninspiring Ditan Park food hall. Other meals, though, were fine, and shipboard dining — including one Chinese dinner — was terrific.
Two Uniworld lunches were at shopping venues (pearls, an all-purpose government Friendship Store), but they were among the best meals on either trip.
Another lunch — an all-dumpling feed (someone counted 15 varieties) — was a hoot. Timing forced us into one KFC bag lunch on the bus, but that was an acceptable arrangement under the circumstances.
Both tours did Peking duck dinners — Viking’s in a Nikko hotel banquet room and nicely done, Uniworld’s in the Beijing Guomen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, one of the city’s better-known duck houses.
Edge: Even.
THE TOURING
Viking’s tour included the Yangtze River cruise; Uniworld offers its own cruise, but we didn’t take them up on the offer.
The result: Viking, with the river experience, led in breadth, but on this itinerary its city touring was necessarily compressed; even Chonqing (the former Chungking), a river stopping point and major metropolis linked to the World War II “Flying Tigers,” barely got a wink beyond its roadways, pollution and pandas.
Uniworld’s customers missed the Gorges and Fengdu, but their experiences in Shanghai and, particularly, in Xian (which included a walk on the city wall) and Beijing (which featured a trishaw tour of the old-neighborhood hutongs and a home-cooked lunch) were far more satisfying than Viking’s. Uniworld’s tours of Suzhou and Tongli, historic and photogenic canal towns outside Shanghai, were refreshing as well.
The tours’ visits to the Great Wall at Badaling (near Beijing) and the Terra Cotta Soldiers in Xian were essentially identical and did the job. Both tours saw the same very good acrobat show in Shanghai (though at different venues) and Tang Dynasty dinner show in Xian.
Edge: Even overall; for the cities alone, Uniworld.
THE GUIDES
As good as you’ll find anywhere. Francis Yang (Viking) and Li Zimeng (Uniworld) were knowledgeable, fun, fluent in English and in all ways professional. Neither lost a tourist.
For those of us who experienced them both (namely, me), there was a bonus: One is a member of the Chinese Communist Party and one isn’t? which meant, among other things, I got two very different explanations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square clash between pro-democracy demonstrators and the Chinese military.
Edge: Even.
— Alan Solomon
