Halls of the Dead

Yangzi River, China

The first day was all about the dead. Even before we entered the first of the Gorges we stopped at what was announced as the "City of Ghosts". What was this? The Lonely Planet didn't have the answer. I had to trust the guides. It was to be a large Taoist temple complex dedicated to the god of the underworld. That sounded cool. Besides, who wouldn't like to be able to say: "I've been to the City of Ghosts"?
I was a bit disappointed with the guided tour. My Chinese vocabulary is still quite limited when it comes to culture and religion. The tour guide just went through her regular routine - in machine-gun-Mandarin. It seemed to be more of a nuissance to her having a foreigner in her group. When she was giving out the tickets outside the entrance she called all Chinese tourists by name. When I told her my Chinese name (under which I was registered) she didn't even listen, just said to her colleague: "Give the foreigner his ticket." Had I heard that right? It may be a small thing but it upset me. So much that I wanted tell people about it but my phone had run out of credit.
The attraction itself was a mixed experience. Ways up to the temple buildings were lined with bizarre, otherworldly guardians of the dead. I loved taking pictures of them and would have loved even more to be able to ask someone about them. The temples themselves, however, were far from spectacular. Workers were rude and much of the grounds had been converted into a cheap underworld freak show made up from (now broken and decayed) paper mache stand-ups. There was even a ghost ride but that was just too cheesy. How much had I paid for this again - 80 RMB??

The next excursion was late that night and, sadly, quite a waste of time. This was to be the Temple of Zhang Fei, ally and oath brother of Liu Bei during the period of the Three Kingdoms. After his assasination his body was buried here while his head rests somewhere in Sichuan Province. A common thing in those days apparently to bury head and body seperately. This was also where I first met Jacques.
We arrived so late that it was already pitch black outside. Photos were difficult because of the lighting, some of the temple was already closed and it was not really a historic building either. Aside from a pretty sculpture of the "oath in the peach garden" and a few lessons on Three Kingdoms history there was not much to gain from this place; after half an hour we were out again.
The way that led up to the temple was lined with souvenir sellers. That wasn't so surprising. They would offer you anything from rusty confiscated Japanese swords to plastic toys for kids. What I found interesting was that a lot of sellers here offered volumes of erotic pictures, Chinese centerfolds. I can't remember seeing them for sale anywhere else and certainly not this openly and in such numbers. They didn't even looks like the kind of smut you'd expect to be sold under the counter. Something like you'd expect to see in the Playboy magazine, I guess. It was interesting to observe how other tourists would discretely peek at them. Few would probably admit to picking one up, so I won't either.

Afterwards me and Jacques still spent another hour eating some food bought at the landing, drinking a beer and getting to know each other. I knew I was going to regret this - the next day would start very early.