Fengdu on the Yangzte

Nov. 3

Happy Birthday to Dawn! This is not likely to be a birthday Dawn will soon forget.
When we woke up this morning, we were docking in the habour of Fengdu, after a 177 km trek from Chongqing.

Our only excursion today was to the Ghost City of Fengdu. A lot of this particular site was damaged in an earthquake not too many years ago and there was a lot of construction, but it was still an interesting spot perched at the top of one of the peaks off the harbour. “Peak” suggests that we had to go quite a way up and that we did. We needed the exercise anyway, so there weren’t any complaints. Some of the group did however opt to pay for a chair lift ride.

The highlight of the walk was the alley of 12 ghosts carved in stone, representing the vices of man. They were reasonably grotesque but not nearly as scary as the guide suggested they would be. Remember the Chinese suffer from a lot of superstitions, so walking through a pathway of ghosts or representations thereof, would not be something a lot them would want to do.

Following our descent from the city, we got back on the boat and quickly were off again down the Yangzte.

As the day wore on, the clouds and mist finally burned off a bit and at one point we almost had sun. It made views from the boat much more enjoyable and we started to get a feeling for what lay ahead. The Yangzte was getting much wider now and there were visible signs of the effects of the 3 Gorges Dam downstream, with the tops of submerged trees poking out of the water and terraces that had previously been further from the water, disappearing at water’s edge. The water has pretty much risen to its new level now, about 170 metres higher than it was before. We’ll learn more about the dam in the next couple of days, but the two main objectives, as is the case with most dams, seem to be flood control and power production. The Yangzte has had some pretty nasty floods in recent years.


So, we had a slow, much needed, relaxing afternoon. Our group collected pre-dinner for drinks in one of the cabins and at dinner we brought on the French wine to help celebrate Dawn’s birthday. I arranged with our guide for a cake, which she actually brought aboard the boat and after an excellent dinner, we were revived enough to head to the ballroom for a crew show and energetic dancing.

Tomorrow, we head into the 3 Gorges.