It was
raining at 6 a.m., about 12 C, very little wind with visibility of about half a
kilometer. The ship had docked early in the morning and two other ships were docked. The rain continued until just before the
ship’s passengers were getting off the ship to visit the Shibaozhai Temple. Passengers
from another ship had an earlier start and I took a picture of their parade of
colourful open umbrellas as they walked along the floating dock to get to the
road.
To make
use of the time before the 7 a.m. Tai chi class, we walked our circuit of decks
2 to 5 and stopped at the coffee station on Deck 5 for cappuccinos. Again today the Observation Lounge was the
location for tai chi. Today’s 18
participants reviewed the moves that we learned over the past three days. There
is no class on the final day since the groups are leaving the ship starting at
6:45 a.m., then 8:45 a.m. and 9 a.m. By
breakfast we had walked 1.5 miles. After
tai chi, we joined Jonna & Sharon for breakfast and were joined by Ken
& Stephen. The yogurt available at
breakfast is made in the ship’s kitchen and tastes like a well made Greek yoghurt.
At 8:45
the passengers from our ship, with our audio receivers in hand, left for the two
km walk to the Shibaozhai Temple. There
were kiosks of goods - scarves, Tshirts, blouses, keychains, housecoats,
dresses, children’s clothes, caps and baseball caps, as well as food vendors,
on the dock, on the road from the dock to the crossroad and then in the main
shopping street, this morning closed to traffic. There were even large pails
with 35 cm long live fish, so that villagers could buy fresh fish. The town has about 4,000 residents, but is
part of the Chongqing district which has a population of more than 34 million. Most of the 20 to 45 year olds leave their
child in the smaller villages in the care of the child’s grandparents, while
the parents live and work in larger centres like Shanghai or Beijing and send
home money, only visiting a few weeks each year.
To enter
the Shibaozhai Temple, since the Three Gorges Dam raised the water 55 meters, a
suspension bridge nicknamed the “Drunken bridge” because of the amount of swaying from side to side, when
more than 200 people are crossing it from both sides, is used. Shibaozhai
Temple has an 80 meter high dike around it now that the village at the former
foot of the temple’s cliff is underwater.
The temple was constructed in 1572, during the Qing Dynasty period, and
is no longer used by Taoist and Buddhist monks.
When it was built people had to scale the steep cliff using handholds
chiselled into to the rock face and later a chain to guide them. It was not
until 1672 that the wooden pagoda was built with a 99 step wooden staircase
reached by about 30 stones stairs to give worshipers a safer way of ascending
to the Temple. In 1956, an additional three storey pagoda was added to the
staircase pavilion. In the temple’s courtyard at the entrance to the temple is the
Duck Well, where the legend is told that if a duck is dropped down the well, it
would reappear swimming the Yangtze River at the bottom of the cliff.
Inside the
temple are statues of goddesses and mythical figures from Chinese legends
including a famous 2,200 year old general, who was immortalized by a larger
than life marble statue. There are also
statues of the Jade Emperor and his wife, the Queen of Heaven and their seven
beautiful daughters. Also beside the
statues are more vendors, making me think of the Christian New Testament story
about vendors in a temple. Then inside the temple is the Rice Flowing Well. Legend
maintains that every day enough rice would flow out of the small well hole to
feed the monks that lived in the temple and their guests. One day a greedy monk
chiseled a bigger hole in the rock, thinking he would get more rice. However,
it caused the rice flow to cease forever. This section is showcased to remind
people not to be too greedy.
From the top of the temple cliff, there is a
view of the Yangtze River in all directions since the temple is now an island. But
today it is misty and the visibility is about three km. Photos of subjects in the distance are not
clear. We heard music from the shore and
were told that when someone dies their family plays loud music as part of the
mourning process and lights firecrackers.
A few days ago, while cruising in the afternoon, we noticed some
fireworks being exploded, so this could be the explanation. There was over an hour of
free time to further explore the temple, take photos or meander
back to the ship through the vendor cries of “Hello”, “Tshirts” and “Cheap”. The Chinese yuan currency cash is accepted
and it best to have exact change, since there is a problem with counterfeit
money in China. The nickname for these markets selling to tourists is the
“Hello Market” or the “Maybe Later Market”.
On the town side of the suspension bridge there are bronze heads of the
Chinese zodiac signs. We took our
pictures with our zodiac sign.
Once back at the ship, before lunch, there
was the disembarkation meeting to give each group details for departure from
the ship in Chongqing (which is 278 km away from Shibaozhai Temple) in the
morning and the flight to Xi’an. In the presentation, Ben, the Program Director
mentioned that Chongqing is known as “Fog City”. The fog this afternoon will prepare us for
fog in Chongqing tomorrow.
The
buffet lunch had several salads, an onion soup with a beef base, sausages and
fruit – pineapple, mango watermelon, cantaloupe, red grapes and blueberries in
separate bowls. There was also pumpkin
pie and mango ice cream for dessert. We
sat with Lorraine and Gary for lunch.
Then we went walking in the inside corridors as the sundeck carpeting
was still quite soggy. There temperature
was about 17 and the cloud did allow the sun to burn off the thin fog. We measured 4 miles by 2 when we took a tour
of the ship’s bridge where three officers were present guiding the ship as the
river guide led the 10 minute tour.
We went
back to the stateroom to start to pack and then walked some more before going
to a 30 minute Chinese Dumpling making presentation. We stopped for a coffee and then some more
walking before going to the presentation “China Today”. The pedometer shows 4.75 miles so far today.
After the presentation the sun was trying to break through the cloud and
managed for a few minutes glowing red, before being covered again by clouds.
There
was the Captain’s Cocktail Party for the final day on the Yangtze River. Besides drinks there was a raffle to benefit
the Viking River Cruises sponsored schools.
Following
the cocktail party was the “Farewell” Dinner. We sat with Ed and Gail and Karen
and Robert.
After
dinner, we went to the Emerald Lounge for a few dances before returning to the
stateroom to pack and put out our luggage in the hall for 1 a.m. to be
transferred to the airport for our early morning start.
Total distance walked today was 5.75 miles.
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