IMPORTANT NOTICE Can anybody reading this tell Sandy that we have not been murdered, imprisoned or kidnapped. He can follow us on this blog. Also tell our dear neighbour Mo that we are fine and can she thank Jenny for trying to use my proxy vote, not that it would have made much difference.
Another lazy day. The idea was to go to the Peoples’ Square which played an important part in our relationship. We didn’t want to hump our bags around and hoped the tourist agency man would look after them because we didn’t want to leave them with anyone else. He wasn’t there, so we went on a short walk round the block and had a rather nice coffee at Starbucks. Returning to the hotel, we saw the tour agency man but it was too late to go to the Peoples’ Square so we went across the road for a meal. I then went for a walkabout through the truly frenetic downtown Chongqing which wasn’t particularly hot but was extremely humid. A tall, narrow tower was exciting a lot of interest with dozens of people taking photos. I don’t know what it was but will have to find out once I can get wikipedia on the laptop.
Returning to the hotel I was told by the tour agency man that the boat would be leaving from Fengdu because the Yangtse was flooded and the ship can’t reach Chongqing. I then went out and walked across one of the many suspension bridges across the river. I looked down on the ancient guildhall complex which consists of buildings similar to the Buddhist temples we saw yesterday. I could also see that the Yangtse appeared to be flooded although other ships were sailing up and down.
At 4 pm the tour agency man went with us by taxi to the riverfront where a bus was waiting. It took us about 80 miles to Fengdu through rolling hills covered in dense forest with many long tunnels. The frequent villages of white houses with blue roofs were surrounded by fields of maize and vegetables. On reaching Fengdu we crossed a long pontoon to reach the “Crystal” ship moored in the middle of the river. Unlike 2012 when I booked a cruise on the internet from Scotland and the passengers were entirely foreigners, this was an all-Chinese vessel where the crew spoke hardly any English apart from the steward, David. We had an excellent evening meal of shredded pork, tofu, Chinese cabbage, mixed vegetables, rice and soup, although it took half an hour to convince David and half a dozen waitresses that we wanted Chinese food rather than the sandwich and Italian pasta they offered us. They were struggling to understand that we hadn’t come 8,000 miles to eat European food.
Fengdu is known as China’s “Ghost City”. It arose more than 2,000 years ago during the Han Dynasty and is said to be the home of the souls of humanity. It has many buildings representing the underworld such as Naihe Bridge, Huangquan Road, Guimen Pass, Wangxiangtai and the18th-floor Hell. It promotes the culture of punishing evil and promoting good. Its folk art integrates elements of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and is the birthplace of Chinese ghost culture. After a walk in the Ghost City we will live to be 99 years old.
This statue of a see-saw is supposed to discourage obesity
Statue at the bottom of the street where our hotel was located
Chongqing is a vibrant frenetic city with a population of 51 million. I couldn’t stop taking pictures.
I need to look up the significance of this tower
Bang bang men. The put the poles across their shoulders and carry a load at each end
The ancient guildhall from a bridge across the Yangtse
Hello fans
The Chinese for “toilet” is a useful word to know
Boarding our ship, the “Interstellar Crystal”
South bank of the Yangtse