I kept the balcony door to my cabin open all night. I went to sleep with the sound of splashing water and passing barges and didn’t wake up once. In the morning, the landscape had changed…no buildings now. The river is crowded though. Every few minutes a barge or several small fishing boats would pass by.

Around lunchtime, we arrived at the small city of Fengdu also nicknamed the “Ghost City” because there is a temple on a mountain nearby that pays tribute to the “King of the Underworld” and features numerous interpretations of the Afterlife. The city of Fengdu pictured here, however, is as new as 1992 (though you would never guess that…it looks much older) because the old city has been evacuated in anticipation of the completion of the Three Gorges Dam. In fact, much of the old city is starting to be underwater, but there is a long way to go until the entire old city is submerged. The dam is expected to be completed by 2009; it’s on schedule.

We went up into the higher part of the city and explored around, visiting a store and the storeowner, apparently a fairly well-to-do person, but something that was quite shocking to many of the other tourists. There were some lovely rice paddies nearby too.

Rice paddies and rice paddies through red salvia:

Afterwards we visited a market in the north side of Fengdu.   This was a very large farmers market with all sorts of food.   There was a huge vegetable market where I finally saw the dong gua, one of the mellons that is common in China.   It looks like a huge zuchini – about two feet long!   There were also the usual curious meats too.   Lots of pig snouts, chicken feet, and even rabbit ears submerged in water.

Market in Fengdu: