Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1078347
20 V I K I N G C R U I S E S As my travel companion — my mum — puts it, the ship feels "like a little bit of Norway" at sea. e view from our comfortable cabin and private veranda, however, is far removed from the ords of Bergen. We've boarded in Tianjin, the northern Chinese port closest to Beijing, and will cruise south over two weeks for a series of calls including Shanghai and the former German outpost of Qingdao before arriving in Hong Kong. Our 900-odd fellow passengers are mostly Americans, with a scattering of Brits, Australians and Canadians in the mix. Cruising in China remains a relatively new proposition for many international cruise lines, with some local ports only beginning to welcome Western ships. is can present some "little challenges", as Orion's cruise director Nolan Dean puts it in one of his port talk presentations. ese end up being relatively minor, from our standpoint at least. Every time we go ashore in mainland China, we're required to carry a stamped official copy of our passport, which is distributed on the first day and perfunctorily checked at each port. At one stop, local authorities close the terminal at short notice for a couple of hours during the day, causing headaches for the shore excursions team. And at one of our overnight calls, the terminal closes from 10.30pm rather than staying open until the morning, as is more usual. Perhaps more significantly, we'd been warned the English language skills of some of the shore excursion guides might be patchy. But it's not an issue for us, and we find our guides eager to please and happy to answer any and all queries about their lives — so much so that one spends part of the drive to our destination walking through the bus and soliciting a question from each passenger. Another, sweetly, performs a short medley of local folk songs for us — a first for me on any guided tour. On-shore exploration is a focus for Viking and, alongside paid options, it includes a free excursion in each port of call: a visit to the Great Wall of China while we're docked in Tianjin, for example, and a tour including an ascent of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. The Living Room, including a book exchange area