Images of China

Most journeys through China involve many internal flights and changes of hotel but a British Airways service direct to Shanghai and the full Yangtse cruise to the Three Gorges allow a journey through China with minimum flying and hotel changes, revealing the stately halls of the Imperial and Summer Palaces of Beijing, the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors in Xian and the Buddhist caves of Dazu.

The Yangtse is the world’s third longest river, some 4,000 miles east to west and known in China as Changjiang or ‘Long River’. Traditionally, river navigation was by small sampans, wupans and sailing junks which can still be seen today. Hankow, now part of Wuhan, inspired the famous Tea Races when clippers and steamships sailed to the South China Sea, Singapore and London. The British connection began when Lord Elgin sailed along the Yangtse to Wuhan. Archibald Little established the first regular steamer service to Chongqing.

With fewer than 1000 giant pandas in the wild, the mission of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is to increase the captive population and improve the genetic diversity of the wild population. Following the first successful attempt in 1980 to breed the giant panda at Chengdu, 87 cubs have been reared and it currently shelters more than 50 giant pandas of all ages. Fortunately the city and Research Centre were unaffected by the earthquake that disturbed the Wolong Panda Research Centre in 2008.

VJV Special Event - Chinese Entertainment
This includes a Peking Opera performance, Peking Duck dinner, City Wall ceremony in Xian, Tang Dynasty dinner show and Acrobatic show.