By all means, travel outside Beijing if you have the time. We departed from Beijing by Shanghai Airlines for Yichang.

In Yichang, the starting point for our Yangtze River Cruise, we visited the Archaeological Museum. The museum has some of the most interesting Han Dynasty (202 B.C. to A.D. 220) relics in China. There also are several rooms where you may purchase middle and late Qing Dynasty antiques.

Here, a word to the wise: Be careful when buying "antiques" in China. Some are clever reproductions sold as originals, and some may be difficult to take out of the country. It is best to buy from a museum shop, where works are almost certainly genuine.

Also, be sure to get a certificate of authenticity with a museum stamp and signature that states you may remove the antique from the country. Otherwise you may have difficulties at Chinese customs. Several in our group bought antiquities here for reasonable prices and had no problems.

We had an excellent dinner at the Tansha Hotel in Yichang, where, as is often the case in China, the meal is served family-style from a large Lazy Susan.

Next was our four-day Yangtze River cruise aboard Victoria Cruise Lines.

Western-owned and operated, Victoria Cruise Lines is one of the oldest and best to ply the Yangtze between Yichang and Chongqing.

The recently renovated ships have ample staterooms, excellent cuisine that arrives fresh daily, water you can drink, and a young and enthusiastic cruise staff with a ratio of 110 staff to 150 passengers.

Onboard activities include tai chi, Chinese lessons, kite flying and lectures on Chinese history. The evening shows range from dances with costumes and music of China's minority groups to impromptu talent shows.

Three Gorges Dam

The first site we visited was the controversial Three Gorges Dam project. This huge dam will be a major source of hydroelectric power and flood control for much of Central China. More than a mile long and 600 feet high, it is the largest engineering feat accomplished by man and will form a lake the size of Lake Erie.

The impact on the climate and environment, along with silting, is not fully understood, but there is no doubt the structure is overwhelming. To go through the four locks that snake along its side is unforgettable.

Three Gorges of the Yangtze

The next day was classically Chinese as we cruised the fabled Three Gorges of the Yangtze. The cloud-shrouded cliffs and peaks soar high above you and evoke images of the dragons, goddesses and mythic creatures whose names they carry.

We then boarded sampans - smaller traditional Chinese craft - to explore the three lesser gorges: Dragon Gate, Misty and Emerald Water. They were beautiful beyond words.

In Misty Gorge, rhesus monkeys chattered from the shore; high above on the cliffs, 2,000-year-old coffins peeked out from caves. Emerald Water Gorge had water the color of liquid jade.

On our final full day, we explored the town markets of Fengdu. This rural town was a revelation, with vendors selling sizzling hot potato cakes on the sidewalk, wares conveyed on the streets in pushcarts or baskets hanging from poles over shoulders, and workers with straw hats and water buffaloes tilling the rice paddies.

The next day, in the dichotomy that is so representative of modern China, we found ourselves in the ultramodern Chongqing airport bound for our next stop, Xian.

Xian

Xian is the ancient capital of China, but our hotel, the Grand New World, was five-star modern with an excellent restaurant.

That evening we attended the Tang Dynasty Show at the Shaanxi Grand Opera House. The Tang Dynasty (608-916) produced what many consider to be the best Chinese poetry and music, and this legacy has been incorporated into a show that has some of the most beautiful costumes and harmonic scales imaginable.

That one hour of sensory rapture was followed by an Imperial Dumpling Feast. These are no ordinary dumplings. They come in wooden steaming pots, in all sizes, shapes and tastes.

Most amazing is that the outside of the dumpling looks like the inside. If the dumpling has fish inside, it looks like a small fish, complete with eyes. If there's a walnut inside, the dumpling looks like a walnut.

The meal concludes with hot pot soup with more dumplings, guaranteed to make you sweat, all served with warm rice wine and Chinese beer.

The Warriors

In Xian, the Terra Cotta Warriors and horses are the stars of the show. Discovered in 1974, they were buried in the tomb of Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) Emperor Qin Shi Huang to guide him into the afterlife.

We spent several hours in the huge buildings that house the warriors and in the museum, and it was not enough time. In the gift shop, you can purchase the only terra-cotta reproductions authorized by the Chinese government.

For lunch, go to the Noodle Restaurant on the grounds. The noodle maker is quite a showman and all but skips rope with the dough as he swings and turns it, throws it onto a marble counter and miraculously turns it into long, perfect noodles. These are boiled and served up in a hot beef broth that is delicious.

Then there is the snake wine. It is brought around at the end of the meal in a large jar filled with amber liquid that has several preserved snakes curled inside. At 30 yuan (approximately $4), it packs quite a punch but did not kill anyone. It's rather like a hot brandy.

Xian has many attractions. A rickshaw ride around the top of the 8-mile long Ming Dynasty city wall, the best preserved in China, is an excursion back into history.

The Chinese herbal market has ginseng, preserved lizards on sticks, and enough ointments and lotions in bright packaging with exotic ingredients to keep your family doctor looking through his "Physicians' Desk Reference" for years.

Shanghai

Our final flight in China took us to Shanghai. Here, the modernistic Shanghai Stadium, build in 1997 but refurbished for the Olympics and seating 80,000, will be an Olympic soccer venue.

It is huge, almost 2 million square feet, and has beautiful new landscaping with indigenous trees and shrubs.

Our hotel was the Sofitel, 17 stories high with large, beautifully appointed rooms and directly in the center of the city.

Shanghai is a shopper's paradise, with everything from sidewalk vendors selling knockoff Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Rolex for $30 or less to shops selling the real thing in the trendy French Concession for considerably more.

The French Concession, with its renovated 19th-century buildings turned into fashionable apartments, shops and restaurants, can easily hold its own with the toniest areas of London or Paris.

Shanghai is home to some of the best acrobatic troupes in the world. Chinese acrobatics is legendary, and our show did not disappoint.

For $25, our front-and-center seats treated us to almost two hours of spinning cups, strong men, sleight of hand, contortionists, tumbling and balancing acts, plus five motorcycles whizzing around inside a giant steel mesh ball. It was all phenomenal.

One final note is something our group noticed time and again during our visit. Not only were our hosts consistently gracious and helpful, but they genuinely liked Americans.

Often in China we were the only Westerners we saw, but we were always made to feel welcome by a people excited and proud to show us their country.

The final evening of our tour, one of our group members recited this poem by eighth-century Chinese poet Li Pai:

This is the place where we must sever.

You go thousands of miles my friend, once forever.

Like the floating clouds we drift apart.

The sunset remains, like the feelings of my heart

China sort of does that to you.
Dr. Mark Davy has been a family physician in the Richmond area for the past 25 years. His hobbies include travel, amateur photography and freelance writing.