We had a very sound sleep and were called to breakfast at 7 sharp. I could smell bacon from half way down the passage and was disappointed not to see it on the buffet, but they brought a communal plate to our table later. We had met Ulrike the Hun the night before and the only other westerners aboard were flushed out of the Honeymoon Suite to join us for brekky. Total passenger complement is 165.
We were cajoled into the lobby by 8am for our morning excursion. We set off across several hundred metres of slippery steel floating walkway to the shore. It was totally steamy, raining just enough to get you uncomfortably wet, and we had been told that we faced a 3.5 hour climb to the top of the mountain, featuring 736 stairs. The rich cultural dividend atop this Hill of Horror was a mouldy old temple, not entirely dissimilar to any number of other mouldy old temples.
I mumbled something about cold drinks and massage girls, waved a cheery farewell and went back to the boat. I was well sticky by then, so I retired to the cabin, stripped off, got the laptop out of the safe, and set to catch up on blogging. It seemed to get darker so I turned the light on. It wasn’t long after that when I realised that another cruise ship had tied on to us and that hordes of excited Chinese were congregating on their deck 2, immediately next to our private balcony. Nie how!
Janine of the ‘don’t let rain spoil a good temple exploration’ continued alone. Again! At the end of the gangplanks and upstairs were electric buggies that quickly got to the first gate of the “City of ghosts”. The initial walk up the roadway was quite steep and we rested briefly before tackling stairs to each of the temple buildings. First was the temple of health & wealth. This is where it began to really rain. Then 3 bridges in a courtyard the outer ones for wealth and health and the centre one for happiness, if a couple you should hold hands and cross the bridge. So I went over it alone. The rain had made the steep little bridge very slippery but none of our party slipped. That would have been quite embarrassing as there were a horde of professional photographers awaiting your descent. Then into the Temple of Heaven. Buddhas and statues of associated followers in each temple.
Buddha
Guard has 3 faces so he can see everything
Check out the eyebrows
More stairs, 33 in fact and if you hold your breath all the way to the top of them you will be accepted into paradise. I managed to do it – just, then stood at the top panting like an idiot. Hope paradise is worth it. There were 3 major gates to enter and women had to step the right foot over the threshold first (because women are always right – lol), men left foot first. One particular gate you were not allowed to touch the threshold – at all, or you would change sex. Powerful stuff this Chinese legend.
There was an avenue of ghosts, this one, if you rub his tummy ensures that you will never suffer from a hangover again. Notice the dark rub mark on his stomach.
The final temple was the oldest and largest, (some had been renovated or rebuilt after earthquakes a few years ago) this one was rebuilt over 400 years ago and contained large statues of various judges and flunkies and a huge Buddha. We were led behind this Buddha to see his wife who was kneeling in a dark secluded spot directly behind her husband and was a normal human height. Outside on either side of this temple was a diorama of the tortuous gates of hell. Have seen this depicted before at Tiger Balm gardens in Singapore. I won't add any pics as they are very gruesome.A small pagoda to one side was the place that the spirits stopped to wave a farewell before departing the earth.
A large pagoda was positioned on the other side and was the end of this tour. We then walked back down the road way and back into the land of the living. Quite a feat to get a return buggy, being polite or any kind of queuing got you nowhere. Eventually, when one arrived, we ran for it and planted our butts on the seat. The rain was a bit of an annoyance but it actually kept us a bit cooler and it did eventually stop.
‘City of Ghosts’ or Fengdu was once a thriving city. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam changed all that and the vast majority of the city is now underwater. The government built an entirely new city on the other side of the river above the expected high tide line and moved everyone there prior to the 2009 inundation.
I really liked this dragon boat.
Lunch and dinner were very well done. Broadly described as a Western interpretation of Chinese food. We are obviously travelling with relatively privileged Chinese and perhaps this is what they eat at home? But certainly different to what we see people eating around the cities. We opted not to go ashore to see the Red Temple close up but took snapshots as we cruised in. After dinner the crew laid on a Talent Show, half of which consisted of a costume display of the various dynasties over the past 2200 years. Very ornate and elegant and certainly smarter than whatever our ancestors were wearing then. Then we had a very good vocal rendition of a Mongolian song and some dancing, including a passionate tribute to the completion of the Tibet Railway. Good Socialist stuff. If Bob Brown continues to run the country we will all soon learn to love it.
Part way through the performance we noticed that we were passing through a very large and brightly lit city but it seemed rude to go out for a look. Those that did returned with spectacular photos of buildings shaped like space ships and evidently we missed another city of 5 million plus. They keep trying to represent Chong Qing as a city of 32 million but clearly it is a cluster of recently seeded cities that have not yet joined . . if they ever will.
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