China Day 7

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28th September 2006

We were woken on the first full day of the cruise by music at 7am. We could have gone to exercise classes on deck, but we passed. We went to breakfast and met our fellow passengers. Our table had two other couples on it, who were both very nice and friendly. The breakfast was similar to that which we had had in the hotel. The day’s excursion was to Fengdu, the ghost city. It was easy to see why it had this name. The flooding of the river meant that the old city would be submerged, and the government had built a new modern city on the opposite bank. Residents were offered relocation costs, but often this was not enough to buy one of the new properties. Our guide had been relocated, and said that on the plus side the new apartments offered electricity and telephones but that the older residents we not happy to be moved. We were taken by bus to Fengdu and offered two options to get to the top of the mountain, either chair lift or on foot. We walked to the top of the mountain through a number of small temples. When we reached the top, there was a series of superstitious rituals to take part in and one of the locals demonstrated moving a heavy weight that looked impossible to move. The top of the mountain was a beautiful pagoda, and a view of a very unusually shaped hotel on the side of the mountain in the image of a Buddha’s head. The temple depicts the darker side of what will happen to sinners when they pass to the otherside, and there were a number of gruesome statues and a slightly odd pornographic torture chamber. We returned to the boat and went to see a demonstration of Chinese embroidery. This sounds boring, but in fact was incredibly interesting. The young girl not only showed her own work, but that of her grandmother which was of exquisite quality. In particular there was a picture that was a tiger on one side and on the same piece of silk a leopard on the other. Even from a distance you couldn’t tell this was embroidery and not a painting. Lunch was a soup starter and a number of main courses with rice. Dad again acted as taster for the table. In the afternoon, Dad and Russ went to learn to play mahjong with some of the other passengers, but returning to prepare for the “Captains Welcome drinks party and banquet”. This amused us as we had already been onboard a full day before the welcome and the farewell party was to be the next night. We changed into dinner attire and the clapped the captain into the dining room. He gave a speech was translated from Chinese into English and French and we joked that the uniform looked like it belonged to someone else because was far too big for him. It was Dad’s birthday, and the crew had made a special cake for him and signed a card. The captain even brought Dad a bottle of wine across. The Captains welcome dance party was more of a staff show, which reminded me of Butlins, but with less talent. We quickly learnt that the waiters from dinner became the evening entertainment. There was a demonstration of different regional dress, a mime act, and some very dodgy dancing/prancing to music. Unfortunately one of our dinner guests had retired early with a migraine, and so missed the excitement, however as their room was directly beneath the ballroom, he heard every step.

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