It is almost like a fairy-tale: a journey through China on the Yangtze, the world's third longest river and the life blood of this vast nastion. A journey among 1,3 billion people. Few people are better suited to write from China than Torbjørn Færøvik. A historian specialising in China, he has travelled to the country close to 50 times in 29 years.

"It sounded like a dream," he writes. "Before me the Long River flows - the very river of life." In Shanghai he boards the East Wind. Ninety-nine days and 6,400 kilometres later, he is on his knees by the river's source, in a wild landscape 5,500 metres above sea level. The reader travels with him, through the multitudinous reality of China, through its noisy everyday and its unique cultures. We encounter all kinds of people - Party bigwigs, weathered nomads, beggars with hands extended and billionaires feasting on roast duck sprinkled with gold dust - in a country whose history never ceases to enrapture.

An adventure and learning journey second to none.