Fengdu Ghost City

Day 6

On our last full day on the Yangtze, we travelled through the mountains of Eastern Sichuan. The juxtaposition of switching from rural scenes to massive high rise cities, separated by only a river bend, was crazy!

Interspersed with landscape watching, we enjoyed the onboard entertainment. Hubert was keen to teach us all how to play Mahjong.

It was tricky, but lots of fun.

Our shore excursion in the afternoon was to Fengdu, an ancient city known as the ‘Ghost City’ to most Chinese people. According to superstitious legend, the dead come to Fengdu Ghost City and the devils go to hell. Since the Tang Dynasty, 48 temples have been built on the site, which sits on top of a mountain. We were moored out from the river bank, once again attached to several neighbouring ships. To reach the shore, we had to traverse an unusual floating boardwalk that connected several pontoons to an enormous flight of stairs. In the heat of the day, not for the faint-hearted.

Once up on the footpath , a golf cart took us to the bottom of the mountain.

The thought of climbing the mountain in the heat was daunting, so it was wonderful to see a chairlift operating!

Once at the top, we started by climbing 33 steps, called the ‘Ladder to Heaven’. As you climb over each step you get closer to heaven and if you climb all 33 steps you reach the Heavenly Southern Gate and get access to the Cloud Palace of Golden Arches where the Jade Emperor lives (Not Maccas).

The cluster of temples were certainly in a beautiful area. But before we could enter, we had to cross the ‘bridge of marriage longevity’, which coincidentally had a photographer on the other side.

The sign next to the bridge told another story. It was actually the bridge between the human world and the nether world. If you’d been kind in the living world you’d pass over the bridge easily. A sinful person on the other hand, would fall into the bloody abyss below.

The Jade Palace was colourfully painted inside and out, filled with statues of different ‘Ghost Kings’.

I always thought temples were like churches and we’re quiet contemplative places of prayer, but this one had a souvenir shop, icecream shop and waffle shop INSIDE!

As we were leaving, all the Chinese people were stepping into a stone pit and balancing on a stone sphere, on one leg, for 3 seconds, before exiting. Right leg for women, left leg for men. Not sure why, but it looked pretty funny!