Both my wife and I had been to Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an before, so our main interest is the Three Gorges and the Panda base in Chengdu. One caution, Viking told us luggage allowance is very limited, so I dropped extra lenses for my camera, removed warm layers for cold weather. Once we got there, first thing our tour escort told us was that we do not have to worry about luggage weight as we were doing group check-in, we do not even have to worry about hand-carry weight as we will never see the counter. Due to Viking's warning, I missed a lot of good shots because I removed my ultra wide lens from my luggage. Also, we had to buy extra clothes at a very expense mall (can you say Gucci or LV?) next to the hotel due to the cold weather in Beijing. We even had to buy an extra suitcase, though very cheap one, so we can bring our stuff home, I would not have to do that if I had used my slightly heavier international carry-on instead of a tote bag for the sake of saving weight.

The good:

The Three Gorges is beautiful, though it would have been much nicer if all the destroyed/flooded ancient structures were still around to be seen. Read more