Xiling Gorge
» Yichang, Hu Bei

西陵峡

Three Gorges

Xiling Gorge consists of four smaller gorges (from the west) called Military Books and Precious Sword Gorge (Bingshu Baojian Xia), The Ox's Liver and Horse's Lung Gorge (Niugan Mafei Xia), Kongling Gorge and Lantern Shadow Gorge (Dengying Xia).

Bingshubaojian Gorge

The name of Bingshubaojian Gorge (Military Books and Precious Sword) refers to a stratified layer of rock resembling a stack of books, and a perpendicular rock shaft below it, at a small cave on the north bank. Two stories concerning heroes from the classical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms are told of these formations.

Legend has it that Zhuge Liang, military adviser to the King of Shu retired from his military life for a seclusion and hid his military writings and sword here.

The Ox's Liver and Horse's Lung Gorge

The Ox' liver and Horse's Lung Gorge lies on the north bank of Yangtze River. On the cliff hangs four or five yellow stone slabs shaped like ox's livers. Above them one can see half of a rock there in the form of a horse's lung.

Kongling Gorge

The Kongling Gorge used to be full of hidden rocks which results in rapids. On the river bank of Kongling Gorge stands a set of rocks which looks like a person leading a cow. This small section is called the Cow Gorge with the person colored black and the cow colored yellow.

Dengying Gorge

Dengying Gorge (Lantern Shadow) is situated on the south bank of the Yangtze River. The four rocks jutting up into the sky resemble four characters in the Chinese mythological novel Pilgrimage to the West. When viewed from a distance Monkey, Piggy, Sandy and the Buddhist Monk silhouetted against the setting sun are really in a natural shadow play. Therefore, the gorge is named Lantern Shadow Gorge.

There are many beautiful scenes along this gorge. The best-known is the Heavenly Pillar Peak, just opposite to Maya Mountain. Legend has it that one day the Monkey King arrived here. Knowing that he would soon become a god, he threw his golden cudgel into the river which grew into a peak, hence the name Heavenly Pillar Peak. The cliff of this mountain is so steep as if cut by a knife. Only a few trees grow on the edge of the mountain top.

Xiling Gorge consists of several dangerous shoals like Xietan, Qingtan and Konglingtan, collectively known as the Three Shoals of Xiling Gorge. Among all the dangerous shoals, Qingtan Shoal and Kongling Shoal are the most famous.

Qingtan Shoal

Qingtan Shoal stretches between Military Books and Precious Sword Gorge and The Ox's Liver and Horse's Lung Gorge. It consists of the First Shoal, Second Shoal and Third Shoal and runs one-and-a-half kilometers from west to east, teeming with reefs and convulsed with sweeping boisterous rapids. Sailors call it the "Iron Threshold" to the river. Boats and skiffs shoot downstream like flying arrows and flounder upstream as if scaling a ladder, zigzagging their way both up and down.

Kongling Shoal

Kongling Rapid lies in the Miaohe section. The local people have always said "Qintan and Xietan are not real rapids compared with Kongling Rapid - the most brutal of the Yangtze rapids." 24 reefs, named Great Pearl, First Pearl, Second Pearl, Third Pearl, and so on, are crammed into the rapids, overlapping each other. The Great Rapid sprawls in the middle of the river, dividing the water into two channels; the south channel is full of jagged reefs and fickle eddies, and the north channel is narrow, twisted and forbidding with submerged rocks. There is also a treacherous reef called "Coming-at-Me"(Dui Wo Lai), which used to fill people with fear. This is a rapid where passing boats have to thread their way through the reefs, dodging from side to side all the time.

Nanjin Pass

Nanjin Pass, considered the dividing point of the middle reaches and the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, is located at the Xialao Stream on the northern bank of the entrance to the Xiling Gorge. It is the east gate of the Three Gorges, just like Kuimen is at the west end. Roaring water rushes out of this bottle-neck and flows into the 2,200-metre-wide part of the river. The landscape is now very different. A new statue of Zhang Fei (a hero in the novel Romance of Three Kingdoms) beating a drum has been erected at Nanjin Pass. At Nanjin Pass there is Zhixiting (Pavilion of Extreme Happiness) and the Battle Drum Mound of Zhang Fei on which you can see the Yangtze east of Nanjin Pass suddenly widened from 300 meters to 2200 meters, flowing further east on the land of Hubei.

The most famous historical sites, cultural relics and natural scenery in this area are the Huangling Temple and Three travelers' Cave (Sanyou Dong).

Huangling Temple

Huangling Temple, formerly known as Yellow Ox Temple, sits on a piece of flat land on the southern bank of the Yellow Ox Gorge within the Xiling Gorge.

Legend has it that Yu the Great (the first king of Xia Dynasty), got help from a yellow ox, the incarnation of God of the Earth when harnessing the raging waters at the Three Gorges. People offered sacrifices to the yellow ox in thanks and, built a temple called Yellow Ox Temple to memorialize this event. The main structure in this temple is the Hall of Yu the Great.

The temple is the largest ancient building in the Xiling Gorges area, first built during the Spring and Autumn period and rebuilt in the Tang Dynasty and repaired in 1618 during the Ming Dynasty. Inside the gate there are the opera building housing a stage, King Yu's Palace and Memorial Temple of Zhuge Liang. A three-meter tablet on the west side of King Yu's Palace carries an inscription of "Note on Dredging the River" carved in 1773.

Three Travelers' Cave

Three travelers' Cave is located on the northern bank of the Yangtze ten kilometers from the urban area of Yichang. The cave got its name because it was the place where three famous poets of the Tang Dynasty gathered and later wrote poems about their visit to the cave. Later three scholars of the Song Dynasty also visited the cave, and their visit was known as the "later visit by three".

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  1. What's the history of Yangtze River?
  2. What are the characteristics of Yangtze river?
  3. How's the environment around Yangtze River?
  4. When is the best time to cruise on the Yangtze River?
  5. What's the difference between upstream and downstream?
  6. What are the sightseeings alongside the river?
  7. What does the cruise ticket include?
  8. How are the ship meals arranged?
  9. What is the difference between an ocean cruise ship and a Yangtze River cruise ship on management structure?
  10. Is there any limit for luggage?

  1. What's the history of Yangtze River?

    The Yangtze Harbor is important to the cultural origins of southern China. Human activity was found in the Three Gorges area as far back as 27 thousand years ago, initiating debate over the origin of the Chinese people. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Ba and Shu were located in the western part of the river, covering modern Sichuan, Chongqing, and western Hubei; Chu was located in the central part of river, corresponding to Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, and southern Anhui. Wu and Yue were located in the eastern part of the river, now Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. Although the Yellow River region was richer and more developed at that time, the milder climate and more peaceful environment made the Yangtze river area more suitable for agriculture.

    From the Han Dynasty, the region of the Yangtze river became more and more important in China's economy. The establishment of irrigation systems (the most famous one is Dujiangyan, northwest of Chengdu, built during the Warring States period) made agriculture very stable and productive. Early in the Qing dynasty, the region called 'Jiangnan' (that includes the southern part of Jiangsu, the northern part of Zhejiang, and the southeastern part of Anhui) provided 1/3-1/2 of the nation's revenues.

    Historically, the Yangtze became the political boundary between north China and south China several times because of the difficulty of crossing the river. Many battles took place along the river, the most famous being the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD during the Three Kingdoms period.

    Politically, Nanjing was the capital of China several times, although most of the time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and smaller countries in the Northern and Southern Dynasties and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods. Only the Ming occupied most parts of China from their capital at Nanjing, though it later moved capital to Beijing. The ROC capital was located in Nanjing in the periods 1911-1912, 1927-1937, 1945-1949.


  2. What are the characteristics of Yangtze river?

    The Yangtze flows into the East China Sea and was navigable by ocean-going vessels up to a thousand miles from its mouth even before the Three Gorges Dam was built. As of June 2003, this dam spans the river, flooding Fengjie, the first of a number of towns affected by the massive flood control and power generation project. This is the largest comprehensive irrigation project in the world, and has a significant impact on the China's agriculture. Its proponents argue that it will free people living along the river from floods that have repeatedly threatened them in the past, and will offer them electricity and water transport -- though at the expense of permanently flooding many existing towns (including numerous ancient cultural relics) and causing large-scale changes in the local ecology.

    Opponents of the dam point out that there are three different kinds of floods on the Yangtze River: floods which originate in the upper reaches, floods which originate in the lower reaches, and floods along the entire length of the river. They argue that the Three Gorges dam will actually make flooding in the upper reaches worse and have little or no impact on floods which originate in the lower reaches. Twelve hundred years of low water marks on the river were recorded in the inscriptions and the carvings of carp at Baiheliang, now submerged.

    The Yangtze is flanked with metallurgical, power, chemical, auto, building materials and machinery industrial belts, and high-tech development zones. It is playing an increasingly crucial role in the river valley's economic growth and has become a vital link for international shipping to the inland provinces. The river is a major transportation artery for China, connecting the interior with the coast. The river used as a waterway for commerce offer now the possibility to cruise at leisure. Since 2004 a European luxury cruising company has brought very high standard and with the help of Swiss hotelier Nicolas C. Solari developed and opened three beautiful vessels now cruising the mighty river. The river is one of the world's busiest waterways. Traffic includes commercial traffic transporting bulk goods such as coal as well as manufactured goods and passengers. Cargo transportation reached 795 million tons in 2005. River cruises several days long especially through the beautiful and scenic Three Gorges area are becoming popular as the tourism industry grows in China.

    Flooding along the river has been a major problem. The rainy season in China is May and June in areas south of Yangtze River, and July and August in areas north of it. The huge river system receives water both from southern and northern flanks, which causes its flood season to extend from May to August. Meanwhile, the relatively dense population and rich cities along the river make the floods more deadly and costly. The most recent major floods were the 1998 Yangtze River Floods, but more disastrous were the 1954 Yangtze river floods, killing around 30,000 people. Other severe floods included those of 1911 which killed around 100,000, 1931 (145,000 dead), and 1935 (142,000 dead).

    The Yangtze is very polluted, especially in Hubei (Shashi).

  3. How's the environment around Yangtze River?

    In 2007 fears were expressed that China's Finless Porpoise, known locally as the jiangzhu or'river pig' might follow the baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, into extinction. The baiji was declared functionally extinct in 2006.

    Calls have been made for action to be taken to save the porpoise, of which there are about 1400 left living, with between 700 and 900 in the Yangtze, with about another 500 in Poyang and Dongting Lakes.

    2007 population levels are less than half the 1997 levels, and the population is dropping at a rate of 7.3 percent per year.

    Heavy river traffic on the Yangtze has driven the porpoise into the lakes. On Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, sand dredging has become a mainstay of local economical development in the last few years, and is an important source of revenue in the region that border it. But at the same time, high-density dredging projects have been the principal cause of the death of the local wildlife population.

    Dredging makes the waters of the lake muddier, and the porpoises cannot see as far as they once could, and have to rely on their highly-developed sonar systems to avoid obstacles and look for food. Large ships enter and leave the lake at the rate of two a minute and such a high density of shipping means the porpoises have difficulty hearing their food, and also cannot swim freely from one bank to the other. About 30% of river's major tributaries like Minjiang, Tuojiang, Xiangjiang and Huangpu are heavily polluted by massive quantities of ammonia, nitrogen, phosphorus and other pollutants which are causing significantly smaller fish catch.

    The Three Gorges Dam is having a major adverse impact on the Yangtze River basin, especially the biota and archaeology.

  4. When is the best time to cruise on the Yangtze River?

    Any time is okay to travel when ships are sailing. The most popular times are April, May, September, October and even November as the good weather lingers much longer in China than that in North America.


  5. What's the difference between upstream and downstream?

    The advantage and disadvantage of upstream trip and downstream trip is the following

    • UPSTREAM

      1, Upstream trip is more relax and comfortable because of one more day staying on the cruise ship. The passengers will not feel tired and busy during these days.

      2, For foreigners, you may have more chance to know and learn some chinese culture and custom.

      3, For persons who have not enough time to travel, upstream is not a good selection.

      4, The place of the begining is Yichang city in which the airport route is not enough for the travellers around the world.

    • DOWNSTREAM

      1, Chongqing has a bigger airport, so it's easier for them to get to Chongqing boarding the cruise ship from many cities.

      2, Most people think downstream trip gives you the feeling that you're going down the main stream.

      3, For some travellers who have not enough time. The downstream trip is best choice.

      4, As there are more people take downstream cruises, it's more expensive and more crowded.


  6. What are the sightseeings alongside the river?

    The cruise will allow you to enjoy some unique sights including superlative natural scenery, important historical sites.
    Some of the highlights from Chongqing to Yichuan are:

      • Chaotianmen Gate Chaotianmen Gate is the largest harbor on the upper reach of the Yangtze River. It is an amazing place where the brown, muddy Yangtze meets the clear Jialing River.

      • Fengdu Ghost City It is said to be the home of devil. The whole place has an eerie feel to it with deserted streets, tower blocks, empty shops and banks.

      • Shibaozhai Shibaozhai is a rectangular rock with sheer cliffs, standing on the riverside. A 12-storey red wooden pagoda with upturned eaves stands on the top.

      • Lesser Three Gorges The Lesser Three Gorges refers to the three separate valleys of the Daning River with the names of Dragon Gate Gorge, Misty Gorge and Emerald Gorge. The gorges are truly spectacular. Sheer cliffs soar up towards the sky from the brown-green water. Mountain tops hover above the ribbon of mist, disconnected from their roots.

      • Shennong Sream Shennong Stream is a tributary of the Yangtze River. The crystal clear steam flows swiftly from north to south through deep gorges.

      • Baidi City(White Emperor City) Baidi City clings to grand hills and cliffs. It is well known as 'the Poet City' Many ancient scholars once visited it and left many literary relics.

      • Gezhou Dam The dam is 2,606 meters long and 70 meters high. There will be 5 ship locks and even an elevator to lift smaller ships over the dam.

    Note: You may only see some of those sights along your trip, which depends on the ship you take.

  7. What does the cruise ticket include?

    The price is very comprehensive as it includes the accommodation, all meals on board, shore excursions and port taxes. The extra costs would be gratuity which is your personal discretion, drinks in bars, long distance telephone calls and faxes, laundry, barbershop, clinics, massage, shopping and others personal expenses.

  8. How are the ship meals arranged?

    Each ship has a big restaurant, which can accommodate all passengers on board the ship. So, there are no shifts on board the ship.Passengers are arranged at appointed tables, which are planned by travel group, nationality, habit of food, religion and culture. Usually, ten persons are at one table. Sometimes, three to five persons are at one table, which depend on the total number of the passengers. There are many collective activities such as shore excursions and they have fixed schedules, so the meal schedules are fixed, too. It takes 1-1.5 hours to have your meals rely on the schedule. A three-star or above cruise ship provides room dinner service and local flavor banquet if you book half or one day in advance. If you are a patient, or Moslem, or Buddhist, you may give advanced notice. Diet, vegetarian, low sugar and low salt food are also available.

    Each ship has a welcome banquet and farewell banquet, on which dishes are delivered to table. Some five-star ships offer authentic western banquets, with silver forks and knives, provide imported butter, cheese. Most cruise ships arrange buffet meals, with both Chinese and western food.

    Most ships also take orders for Chinese dishes. If you want to treat somebody special on the ship, even with a banquet, it can be arranged. The main menu is published on the notice board in front of the restaurant. Ask the waiter or waitress if you are not sure.

    Here is a list of food provided on board:

      • Chinese Wine Tsingtao Dry Wine, Dynasty Dry White Wine, Dynasty Red Wine, Loyal

      • Cocktail with Alcohol tw Medini, Grass Hopper, Whisky Sour, Teqinla Suririse, Planter Punch, Tom Collins, Margarita, Daiquiri, Pina Bloody Mary.

      • Cocktail without Alcohol Royal Cruise, Pussy Foot, Fn, iit Punch

      • Soft Drinks (aerated water, mineral, juice) Cola, Diet Cola, Spirit Sodri Tonic, Evian Water, Pemer Water, Localwater, Orange Juice, Tomato Juice, Coconut Milk

      • Aperiiifs Campari, Pemo4 Martini

      • Sherry Port Cream Sheny, Fino Sheny, Sandeman Port

      • Whisky Scotch Whisky, Whisky, Irish Whisky, Malt Whisky, Bour Whisky

      • Vodka Smimoff Vodka, Stolichiiaya Vodka

      • Gin, Gordonfs

      • Rum Captain Morgen, Bacardi Rum

      • Congnac Courvoisier Napolone, Remy Martin. Hennessy

      • Congnac Courvoisier X. O, Remy Martin X. O, Hennessy X. O, Martell Cordon Bleu

      • Spirit Pernod, Underberg, Tequila

      • Beer and Stout Carlsberg, Heineken. San Miguel, Stout

      • Chinese Spirits Fen Jiu, Mao Tai, Bai Yun Bian, Wu Liang Ye

  9. What is the difference between an ocean cruise ship and a Yangtze River cruise ship on management structure?

    The management system on the Yangtze is simple. The general manager is in charge, which is different from ocean cruise vessels. Captain is in charge of the operation of mechanical part of the ship. He must concentrate on the sailing because there are lots of gorges, reefs and shoals in the river. The captains on the Yangtze River are experienced and have been examined and promoted strictly. Ordinarily, there are one hundred and half travelers and one hundred staffs on one ship.


  10. Is there any limit for luggage?

    There is no rule for the number of the pieces or weight of personal luggage on your cruise ship. But closet space is limited, so bring things you intend to use. There is a luggage rack in every room and luggage deposit service is available. If you are a member of a travel group, your luggage will be sent to ship in advance or arrive at the same time you check in. The luggage will be sent into your cabin by the bellboy once your cabin is assigned. If you are traveling individually, the bellboy will help you. But the ships usually charge $1 per piece, arrival or departure. Please note this is not tip and you have to pay upfront on the spot.If you want to pay tip when he has finished his job, give him one or two ten-yuan bills when you do not have a lot of stuff.

Xiling Gorge, named after Xiling mountain that at the endpoint of Three Gorges, starts at Xiangxi and zigzags 76 kilometers (47 miles) down to the Nanjing Pass and then sharply checked by Gezhou Dam in Yichang. It is the longest and historically the most dangerous of the Yangtze gorges. Xiling Gorge is famous for its high mountains, gullies, dangerous shoals and hidden reefs.

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