KEY POINTS:
Follow the flag. Follow the flag.
There had always seemed something slightly comic about those troops of tourists traipsing behind their guides across the world's tourist hotspots, but braving the crowds in Beijing's Forbidden City it was starting to make sense - as was the whole idea of a conducted holiday.
There are times when doing it by yourself starts to feel like one effort too many and being in a country without knowing a single word of the language and, worse, where you can't even read the script, can be one of those times.
When the country is as vast - and daunting - as China, it is easy to understand why a prepackaged, follow-the-leader option is so attractive to so many visitors.
The operators' offer of a cherry-picked itinerary including internal flights, catering, baggage-handling and airport-to-airport service seemed a pretty cosy security blanket - and so it turned out.
It was all pleasingly reminiscent of the school trip writ large complete with the naughty kids playing up at the back of the bus.
Our Beijing excursion came near the end of a 12-day "Jewels of Imperial China" tour by Viking River Cruises and the heart of the schedule was a five-night cruise along the Yangtze.
The advertising promised "China's key highlights in just 12 days" under the company slogan "exploring the world in comfort" - and it was hard to disagree with either description.
If most of us were asked to make a wish list for things we wanted to see in China it would include Shanghai, Beijing, the Great Wall, the terracotta warriors, the legendary Three Gorges, perhaps a few adorable pandas - and here they all were.
The glimpses were often too fleeting, but the fact that the brief taste left you wanting a bigger experience is, perhaps, an indication that the sampler was well worth having.
We had been unsure of what to expect from the river cruise, having fallen foul before of the difference between the glossy brochures and videos and the realities.
But the Viking Century Sky turned out to be all that was promised, a modern five-deck mini-liner with 153 staterooms, all with balconies. The facilities were compact but perfectly adequate, the public areas were comfortable, the catering good and the crew simply superb, with the dining room staff proving to be star attractions. We learned more of contemporary China from talking to these bright and aware young people than from reading any number of China-watcher pieces.
The favoured itinerary is to head downstream but we went upstream, boarding at Wuhan which suited us well because I've always been fond of working rivers and these first stretches, while not particularly scenic, were full of river traffic from tiny sampans to huge barge convoys.
When we reached the legendary Three Gorges they were not a disappointment, deep canyons overhung by mist-shrouded mountains, traditional Chinese paintings assuming reality before us. And at the entrance to this classical riverscape is the monumental statement of the new China, the Three Gorges Dam project.
But the Yangtze offers other attractions and every day we trooped off on our excursions, following the flag and with our little radios dangling around our necks providing running commentaries.
While looking like the badge of the nerd these were very effective, meaning we didn't all have to crowd round a shouting guide, and enabling us to find the group again by getting into transmission range.
At each stop, both on the cruise and on the rest of the trip, there were local guides, supplying a ceaseless flow of information, the best bits of which were not in any of our guidebooks.
One unexpected highlight came with a late afternoon visit to a deserted - indeed, closed except for us river cruisers - Hubei museum with a haunting recital on replicas of bronze bells, stone chimes and traditional instruments dating back 2400 years.
The originals, which have an astonishing range of 5 1/2 octaves are on display too, in remarkably good condition, and one of the many testimonies to the extraordinary achievements of the ancient Chinese cultures.
But it was modern China which provided a distinctive memory.
The cruise company has a sponsorship arrangement with an elementary school in the river town of Yueyang and the passengers are taken on a visit.
Yueyang is, not to mince words, a drab, dusty utilitarian town and the Ba Zi Men school, although assisted by the Viking River Cruise Hope project, is a Third World institution with money obviously in short supply.
But children are children and the brass band welcome and the entertainment mounted by the school - an unlikely display of pop video dancing - went off with the self-confidence and backstage giggles of any school anywhere.
The classroom brought pause to those of us who criticise our own school standards, but the children ripped through their rote reading and recitation with noisy enthusiasm under the guidance of a keen teacher.
It was impossible not to wonder what the future will bring for those keen and eager children. But there's not too much time for getting philosophical on this trip.
You have to fit in the Shanghai acrobats (unbelievably good), the Tang dynasty show (a spectacularly camp combination of tradition crossed with Busby Berkeley by way of Michael Jackson), the Beijing opera, the silk carpet factory, the jade workshops, contemporary art displays and the silk art gallery, not to mention the pandas at the Chongqing zoo, one of whom did the business with a display of almost unbearably cute cuddliness.
The cruise provided some bonus diversions, too, which will probably not come as a surprise to regular ship-goers but were new to us. The homogenous mass of, mostly, Americans of a certain age soon sort themselves into individuals, providing excellent people-watching in the cocktail hours.
The ship is too small to provide entertainment of an ocean-going scale but there were well-attended classes and lectures, not all from the crew as a serious impromptu demonstration of Hawaiian dancing proved.
The homespun nature of the evenings proved more fun than we might like to admit. We will draw a veil over the nature of the Antipodean contribution but I will never hear Achy Breaky Heart or Living Next Door to Alice without thinking about the glories of Western culture.
Flanking the cruise were the big city stops in Chongqing, Shanghai and, of course, Beijing where the big-note attractions like the Forbidden City palaces, Tiananmen Square and the Summer Palace benefited from the guided nature of the trip, making light work of a lightning tour.
But the city glimpses also proved frustrating and we longed for the impossible in such a tight itinerary, more time to see one of the most fascinating countries on earth.
If tourism is part of the entertainment business then our visit lived up to that showbiz adage "Leave 'em wanting more".
John Gardner travelled courtesy of Viking River Cruises and World Journeys Ltd of Ponsonby. Host hotels were the Shanghai Pudong Shangri-La, The Xian Golden Flower Hotel and The Beijing Westin.
CHECKLIST
Yangtze
Getting there: Air New Zealand started direct flights from Auckland to Beijing twice a week on July 18.
Cathay Pacific flies to Hong Kong daily with through connections to Beijing and Shanghai twice a week.
Yangtze Cruise: The 12-day Viking River Cruises Imperial Jewels of China trip includes a six-day Yangtze cruise, three nights in Beijing, two nights in Shanghai and one night in Xian. For 2009, this is priced from $3647 per person twin share and includes internal flights in China and all meals. The company also has a 16-day China's Cultural Delights itinerary, which includes Suzhou and Nanjing, Mt Jiu Hua, the Dongting Lake and Jingdezhen.
Travel tips: New Zealand passport holders require a vis ato visit China. Probably the best time to visit is during China's spring (mid March to the end of May) or autumn (September to November). Summers (especially July and August) can be very hot and winters bitterly cold.
Further information: See vikingrivers.com or local agents World Journeys.
