This Well-liked Cruise Line Began Crusing to Mainland China—and I Went Alongside for the Journey

In 1902, greater than a century earlier than the Trump tariffs turned world commerce the other way up, individuals from world wide had been racing to arrange store on the island of Gulangyu. On the time, most of the world’s nice powers had been opening consulates on this islet close to Xiamen, China, desperate to stake an financial declare on the Center Kingdom. On Gulangyu, new arrivals from the US, the UK, Japan, and 10 different nations cast a pluralistic society, one which constructed terraced seaside gardens, winding lanes, and villas that wouldn’t look misplaced within the south of France. This distinctive architectural custom and cultural legacy is right now acknowledged by UNESCO, which added Gulangyu to its record of World Heritage websites in 2017.

In case you’re something like me, you’ve most likely by no means heard of Gulangyu or, for that matter, Xiamen, town of 5 million simply an eight-minute ferry experience away. So, for me, it was a revelation to wander the charming pedestrian streets of Gulangyu, taking photographs, ducking into tea retailers, and purchasing for postcards. All the things—each snippet of Chinese language I heard, each pagoda and vista I noticed within the Shuzhuang Backyard—was wildly novel. It felt utterly totally different from something I’d ever seen earlier than, an epiphany in an more and more homogenous world. 

What’s extra, by the point I arrived in Gulangyu, I had been feeling that method for a number of days. I’d had comparable experiences in Dongtou, Pingtan, and Zhoushan—three different coastal Chinese language locations that I had by no means heard of till a pair months earlier than I arrived. I had been considerably unsure whether or not it was even doable to go to mainland China as a vacationer, given the fraught political and financial scenario between the U.S. and the Folks’s Republic. Earlier than I went on the journey, a minimum of one in every of my well-traveled buddies had advised me the thought of going appeared, if not foolhardy, too tough to be worthwhile.

However I did believe in Viking: the T+L reader favourite resumed its operations in mainland China in September 2024 after a five-year hiatus. Beforehand, Viking had provided river cruises alongside the Yangtze with add-on visits to locations like Beijing and Xi’an. The corporate’s ocean cruises between Hong Kong and Shanghai aboard a 465-cabin ship signify one thing utterly recent.

So, final November, I adopted the lead of these early-Twentieth-century trailblazers and made for the coast of China, flying to Shanghai to board the Viking Yi Dun.

Funnily sufficient, the one factor that didn’t shock me on my 10-day cruise was the ship itself. That’s as a result of the Yi Dun is kind of a carbon copy of all the opposite ocean ships within the Viking fleet. The general public areas are Scandi-chic, with blond wooden, wool accents, and loads of snug seating; a pool deck with a movable roof permits for indoor-outdoor operation. The model’s trademark central Atrium is a hub of exercise, as is the road’s ordinary World Café, an all-day buffet. The dishes it served—Beijing-style soy-sauce noodles, dumplings, wok-fried greens, crackly fried rooster with fiery Tien Tsin chiles—had been a spotlight of my journey.

My fellow passengers had been fascinating—and terribly well-traveled. Even so, a number of individuals indicated that they’d at all times assumed China could be too tough or costly to go to—that’s, till Viking emailed them. Most had been making the cruise half of a bigger China itinerary, combining it with excursions of Beijing, Xi’an, or Chengdu. One traveler talked about that he was planning to spend a minimum of 4 further days in Hong Kong, seeing as he was in the neighborhood.

I, too, felt like I’d gained the journey lottery, attending to see locations that had been closed to Westerners (and certainly many Chinese language individuals) for years due to COVID restrictions. By crusing with Viking, I immediately had the keys to a few of China’s most fascinating cities. What’s extra, I by no means as soon as needed to wait in line, purchase tickets, prepare transportation, make restaurant reservations, or deal with some other logistics.

Whereas most of the locations I noticed had been vacationer points of interest, they by no means felt touristy—partly as a result of, from the minute we left Shanghai, I didn’t see a single Westerner who wasn’t touring on the Yi Dun. On the Xichan Temple in Fuzhou, for instance, there have been hardly any guests save for a dozen of us from the ship and a Chinese language couple taking marriage ceremony photographs in conventional costumes. At a time when it looks as if the complete world is crashing the gates of museums and trampling the downtowns of Europe, touring China, satirically, felt just like the treatment for crowds.

One morning, on an tour from the port of Zhoushan, a number of dozen of us had been handled like VIPs as we toured the centuries-old lanes of the fishing village of Dongsha. Like different seaside enclaves, Dongsha was based as a buying and selling submit and, in flip, turned a venue for cross-cultural trade. In that spirit, Viking had organized for us to be greeted by a dragon dance—which a number of passengers joined—and performances of conventional Chinese language theater and puppetry. After I’ve seen these types of exhibits up to now, they’ve at all times struck me as contrived. However, maybe due to my very own unfamiliarity with pre–Cultural Revolution China, they provided a compelling window into a facet of the society that I hadn’t beforehand thought a lot about.

The subsequent afternoon, we arrived in Wenzhou, an industrial port about midway between Shanghai and Xiamen. As we docked subsequent to large gantry cranes and stacks of delivery containers, it was laborious to think about that something particularly scenic might be shut at hand. However the archipelago of the Dongtou district was only a quick bus experience away, giving me the possibility to stroll a number of miles alongside a seaside promenade that felt like one thing out of California’s Central Coast: pine-covered cliffs, boulder-strewn seashores, and, on the breeze, the scent of seaweed being farmed offshore. For all of the pure magnificence, essentially the most memorable a part of the day was when a bunch of Chinese language vacationers strolling by insisted on getting a photograph with our group—Western vacationers being thought of much more of a noteworthy sight than the marvelous views.

Because the Yi Dun continued south, the surprises continued. Within the Sanfang Qixiang district of town of Fuzhou, a bunch of us had one of many journey’s most memorable meals, which started with fake shark’s fin soup and sesame shrimp and continued with platters of fried cod, wilted greens, seafood noodles, and lotus-root suggestions, which had been organized on the lazy Susan in the course of our spherical banquet desk. One other day, we toured the UNESCO-listed Tulou district, the place the Hakka neighborhood developed an architectural kind that fuses the concepts of collective protection with residence dwelling. These tulou, a few of which date again to the thirteenth century, are like enclosed villages for a whole bunch of individuals: sturdy partitions encompass an open-air courtyard on the middle of a sq. or round flooring plan. Right this moment it’s doable to go to a number of of these buildings, the place individuals proceed to stay and work—and welcome guests to buy souvenirs, lots of them handmade on web site.

In Xiamen, a dozen of us spent two nights off the ship, on the glorious Andaz, so we may do extra sightseeing on land whereas the Yi Dun traveled south, spending a day and an evening at sea. That gave us the chance to go to, after darkish, the Eighth Seafood Market, the place all method of sea creatures had been on the market—and infrequently cooked to order: recent clams, practically translucent shrimp, stay dogfish, oysters, sea urchins, squid, porgies, crabs of seemingly each conceivable dimension and coloration. Many distributors appeared shocked that I’d wandered in; I wouldn’t have missed it.

To meet up with the ship, which might quickly dock in Shenzen, Viking organized for our group to take a bullet practice. I’ll admit to being one thing of a #railfan, so I discovered the thought of racing via the countryside on one in every of China’s superfast trains interesting. It was additionally, I found whereas boarding at Xiamen, a research in how China and the U.S. have maybe extra in frequent than we People assume: I handed the time earlier than departure by looking in airport-style retailers. As soon as on board, I used to be a bit underwhelmed. We might have been zipping alongside at 142 miles per hour, however I felt like I used to be driving the Amtrak Acela. 

However then we got here to the outskirts of Shenzen, the megalopolis that’s right now residence to 18 million individuals. We alighted from our practice and boarded a bus that will take us again to the Yi Dun for a remaining night time. Alongside the way in which, we drove previous miles and miles of skyscrapers, a boomtown of mind-boggling scale, conjured to serve the relentless development of this metropolis. Although I didn’t have time to discover, one factor appeared sure: there was a lot, way more to see. 

A model of this story first appeared within the December 2025/January 2026 difficulty of  Journey + Leisure beneath the headline “Shock and Delight.”