THE TEMPLE OF HELL.

We fly to Chonquin, a big city in the Szechuan area of China. The food in this province is known for its use of chilies and  we will have spicy food. Szechuan is known for the best curries both fruit and meat. From the city we are bused to our ship landing at Fengdu.

On the way, the bus stops at  an electric car charging station. China doesn’t mess around when it comes to foreseeing where the future is taking us. They have so few cars on the road yet they are building infrastructure of the future-now!  And, they do it with charming detail in the last-forever roof.

From the bus parking  lot we walk down 100 steps to the landing, then cross this pontoon bridge and enter the belly of the ship.  Porters haul our luggage, and once settled we walk back across the bridge to the parking lot and climb another 200 steps up to visit the Temple of Hell. We joke that the climb is what gave it the name.


As we get close to the temple, we see grotesque, moss-covered figures lining the stairs.

We can’t read the inscriptions, but Viki explained to us that this Tang Dynasty Temple is reversed from a Ching Dynasty Temple. Everything here is backwards, like Christianity, you suffer for bad behavior and are re-incarnated to a higher plane (or heaven)  for good behavior.

There were so many of these figures, I wish I had taken pictures of all of them and learned what each one means.

From the temple plaza, you have three stairways to choose from to enter the grounds of  the temple. One is for women, one is for men and the other is for the monks.

The roof details and even the colors are different from other Temples we’ve seen.

We walked the garden which had odd shapes and unusual colors, twisted arches and tests of skill.

The first test of skill was the Xing Shen Stone. The idea is to balance a 90 pound stone on top of a 200 pound stone.

Mark Maurer, a big strong guy from our group, gave it a try.

He succeeded but nobody else wanted to give it a try. His success will heal a broken heart. The tortured sign in English describing the feat was a hoot.

We tried a balance feat.

You try to stand on one foot on a ball on a hard flat surface for nine seconds. To succeed is to give you a long life. None of us could do it.

The pagoda was beautiful but had none of the markings we’ve seen on others.

In the dungeon, figures behind bars are in hell and suffering. We realized that this temple would not be painted and prettied up for the 2008 Olympics. Even so, it was enjoyable and definitely an unusual place.

From the temple garden we could look down at our ship below through the mist. Another phase of our journey was about to begin. The fabulous Yangtze  River.

NOODLES AND SMALL WILDGOOSE PAGODA

Before leaving the Terra Cotta Soldiers, one must visit the Provincial Shaanxi History Museum nearby. It gives visitors a timeline of Chinese civilization from homo erectus to modern China.  But, the real reason to visit the museum is for their fabulous noodle lunch. I’m not kidding. In fact watching them make the noodles is almost better than eating them.

The long noodles are made by a strong young man who grabs this huge rectangular hunk  of dough, separates it in the middle forming a dough circle, and then he stretches and stretches and stretches the dough until it’s about four feet long and it suddenly breaks into noodles. Then he plops the whole mass  into a boiling pot of broth.  It defies reason. The guy was mobbed and one could barely get close enough to get a picture as you jostle in line to get your food.

The flat noodles are made by another strong fellow. He begins with a roll about twice this size in diameter and rapidly slices noodles off with a special tool directly into a pot of boiling broth.

The other best reason to visit, in my opinion, was their exquisite ceramics. The facial expression of the driver and the posture of the camel so realistic.

In this glazed piece, the accoutrements and the horse’s hooves are particularly stunning.

Only in China would you find a dragon handled pot.  I took 19 photos and uploaded them at:   https://picasaweb.google.com/106530979158681190260/200610XianPottery
After lunch we visited the Small Wildgoose Pagoda.

This small, plain Pagoda survives  from the Tang Dynasty. The monks studied and copied manuscripts here. One monk walked them all the way from India. A monk here was starving. (They are not allowed to ask for food.) A wild goose flew into the pagoda and couldn't get out. When it died, he ate it. Thus the name. A Pagoda serves as a temple. The grounds are very spacious and we saw people meeting here, and exercising here. Many shops line the area selling home crafted paintings, jade, glass work and beads. Rings to tether horses are seen about the place from the old times.

Typical of China, the public areas are beautiful and very useful for multiple functions.

In this complex is a beautiful bell. We all took a turn trying to push the heavy timber to ring the bell. It barely made a sound. It takes about ten strong men to make it ring. It was used to send messages high up into the mountains and surrounding forests.

We left the grounds and visited a Jade factory.

The jade was beautiful, but we couldn’t help but notice the workers uncomfortable working conditions.

Lunch was a special twenty-three dumpling meal served from this huge fire pot. Dinner at our hotel was a special Thai meal of two curries, fruits, meats, stir fry and bread pudding. Meals are almost always served at these round tables with a turntable in the middle where dishes are shared around the group.We were so full from lunch we could hardly eat dinner, but, we managed.
For more information about the Wildgoose Pagoda click the link: http://www.china.org.cn/english/TR-e/43175.htm