Day 19 & 20- River Cruising
Woke up at 6am for breakfast on the cruise. We realised that we have reached Chongqing, a town not in Hubei anymore. The cruise has taken us over a few hundred kilometres while we are sleeping at night. Had our breakfast before alighting the cruise for a tour visit to 白帝城(white emperor city). This historical ancient city requires us to take a 5mins bus ride and cross a bridge to reach there. This place is also called city of poem because there were many poets about it, including the famous Li Bai and Du Fu. Popular ancient characters like Liu Bei, Zhu GeLiang and Zhang Fei once resided there during the three kingdoms era.
Our cruise's lobby
Breakfast on cruise
白帝城's entrance
Inside the temple...
statue of popular ancient characters...
bones artifacts of ancient people...
a wooden coffin on display
It's packed with tourists...
Taken while taking stairs down from the temple...
MDE group photo
Went back to our cruise for free & easy session and lunch. Decided to catch some view from the top deck and capture some photos after lunch. It's very windy when the cruise is moving. The tour guide explained to the tourists some of the famous mountains along the way. It's a really good experience to view such a beautiful nature scenery, as we see buildings and city everywhere in Singapore.
Strong wind blowing our hairs away...
A nice slant mountain....
everyone is excited to view the mountains.
We transferred to a smaller passenger boat in the afternoon to visit 神农溪(shen nong stream). The travelling time to the venue took around 1hr+. We get the chance to experience river rafting by the local people. The tour guide told us that these local people did agriculture farming in the morning, and raft the boat for tourists to earn additional income. There were one part where they had to pulled the boat using their body, in order to follow the past traditional way of the people did. Watching them pulling our boat seems extremely tough, and we actually felt sorry for them. The tour guide also told us that in few decades to come, these boatmen won't be working anymore, as many of their childrens have went to the city area to pursue studies to secure better jobs.
Boarding the rafting boats...
The boatmen pulling the boats with bamboo ropes.
Finished the rafting session at about 6pm. Took the boat back to our cruise for dinner. Once again, it's free and easy for us on the cruise. Decided to catch some sleep and observed the cruise undergo the water elevator later at the night. It's an amazing sight. The cruise entered the dam and gets lower by 100 over metres through the drainage of waters out of the dam. After viewing such a rare sight, we went back to sleep.
Day 20
Woke up at 630am in the morning by the tour guide. Went for breakfast and back to the rooms to pack up. We are leaving the cruise at about 8am to travel back to wuhan. It was raining quite heavily outside and we had no choice but to walk in the rains as we don't have any umbrellas with us. Along the way, a man offered to share his umbrella with me. I'm grateful to him. Stocked up some biscuits and foods at a nearby supermart as we are heading back straight to our campus without stopping for lunch. Reached WUST at about 2pm in the afternoon and it was drizzling there. The night's temperature dropped to 17 degree, and it's expected to drop even further.
Reflection:
Through the 3 days tour, We get to experience and observe how the people of other parts of the world has been doing, and we get to understand their way of living. Unlike those high technology and urbanise areas, these farmers and local people lead a simple and healthy lives. It's then we realised that we in Singapore is living too comfortably, and yet we still complained. On the other hand, visiting these attractions helps widen knowledge on historical events as well. It's part of an important learning journey that everyone of us should cherish it well. We are looking forward to wudang mountains next week, as more informations will be learnt and discovered.
posted by Adrian @ 10:07 AM
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