There’s a Ghost!
Whilst on our Yangtze river cruise we visited the Ghost City of Fengdu located on the Northern bank of the river downstream from Chongqing where we boarded the ship.
The only downfall- rain!
Why Ghost City?
Fengdu received its reputation as the “Ghost City” during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 AD – 220 AD). Two officials from the imperial court – Wang Fang Ping and Ying Chang Sheng – were bored with the political life in the court and came to Ming Mountain outside Fengdu City to practice Taoist teachings. Both of them later became immortals by carrying out self-cultivation. When combined together their surnames – Yin and Wang – sound very much like “King of Hell” in Chinese.
Hence the people began to call Fengdu the “Ghost City”. This local legend became famous throughout China during the Ming Dynasty about 400 years ago when it was mentioned in the Chinese classic novel, A Journey to the West.
This was an optional tour which we paid approx £40 but was so worth it. We had an early breakfast as we had to be off the ship early at 8 am to join the tour.
This is not for the faint-hearted trust me – steps galore and that is just to get to the little trolley buses that take you to the main road entrance. The pontoons to get on & off the ship were very slippy so good walking shoes required.
Our tour guide was quite hard to understand as her English wasn’t great but we did our best to listen to her. To enter the City there are cable cars which take you up to the top or you can walk but approx 300 steps & as it happened to be raining very heavily this day we took the cable car up the mountain.
There were some fabulous temples and statues and the detail was amazing to see. It would have been a lot better if not raining but we had a great time all the same.
To enter you have to cross the bridge which tells you if you are good or bad – we passed over OK – thank goodness.
Without giving too much away this was a great place to visit if you’re interested in Chinese culture & have good legs as lots of steps up through the different stages.
This was one set of steps to get up and down to the different temples but so worth it.
So will you be brave enough?
About Me
My name is Barbara Hopley (my real surname is now Neale) but most people call me ‘Babs’ – doesn’t sound as old as I’m not really that old. I am passionate about Cruise and have over 30 years of experience of travel knowledge. After working for various travel companies I…
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