Landscape · Cruises run roughly March to November

The Yangtze and the Three Gorges长江 · 三峡

The third longest river in the world, and the line that divides the country. North of it: wheat, noodles, dumplings, dry winters and central heating. South of it: rice, humidity and no central heating at all, which is why a Shanghai January feels colder indoors than a Beijing one. The Three Gorges are the dramatic middle section, and they are now partly drowned — the dam raised the water by up to a hundred metres and moved more than a million people. The gorges are still worth the run; they are simply a different, wider river than the one in the classical poems, and knowing that is part of seeing it.