BAIDI City, Hubei Province, China.

Ok folks, especially those who have been keenly following my stories about our May/June travels to Wuhan, Hubei Province and other cities, and our eye-opening adventure at the Yangtze River especially the famous 3 Gorges....my last post on this continuing story was on August 7 2008. You can read it here. Four months have gone by since and what a busy and truly great period this has been for not only me but the family as well. My 3 grandsons since then have welcomed one more to the fold making it 4 now. Little Jordy is now 4 months old and about to celebrate his 1st X'mas. So much has happened in these few months everywhere..and much of the news out there isn't too good. But we gotta keep moving and stay focussed on the road ahead. As to blogging, as you can see...I have never stopped one bit. In fact I have gone on an overdrive! Started 2 completely new blogs ! One is for my collection of interesting stuff which I named " Uncle Dicko's Storeroom of Wisdom". The other is a blogsite called "Serangoon our Kampong" which I am doing for the grassroot leaders in my community. Most of them know very little about blogging and so I have to coach them before I eventually pass over the project and administration of the site to them. I will remain as their "Guru".

From last month, I was and am also a resident guest Blogger as INFOCOMM 123 Silver Ambassador at their I T portal. You can see their banner and widget above.

There is still much to share about these 4 fulfilling months.


But duty calls as I want to complete my China story. So here it goes.



Continuing Story...

After passing Qutang Gorge, we had an early dinner on board our cruise ship. Soon our cruise ship arrived at the jetty at BAIDI City. This is a city very deeply connected to the 3 Kingdom stories. At about 6.15 pm, we boarded another boat that took us across Baidi city to the opposite side, a town called Fengjie town or "White Emperor Town". We then boarded a bus for a 10 minute journey to the place shown in these photos. This is a "Must visit and must see" place as this whole temple complex was set up in commemoration of the great Loyalty and friendship of the 3 famous brothers Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Chang Fei and their brilliant military advisor Zhuge Liang. The buildings and grounds have a very long history. One of the Ming emperors was moved to build it in their memory and honour. The top picture: Me and D2 at the beginning of a long walk and tiresome climb to the top of that hill behind us.



Centre Pic: The climb up is very long,winding and steep. Many cannot make it without using the services of these sedan chair carriers. It requires 2 strong men to carry one person up. They charged about 30-40 yuan perperson. There were 2 huge caucasian ladies who tried to haggle the price down to below 30 Y. The carriers refused to negotiate. Rightly so, in my opinion. Not only that, they assessed the "size" of their baggage[ 2 ladies] and upped it to 50 Y...take it or leave it.
The 2 ladies sighed and left it and started walking up. I was behind them and could see they were really unfit and struggling with each footstep. They could have collapsed at any time! I advised them to take the sedan. Don't save such money. Spend it! They quickly signalled to the 4 clever carriers who were actually following close by, knowing full well their services will be needed shortly. The ladies breathed easy but not so the 4 carriers...they were grunting and groaning and complaining about the 2 elephants they were carrying!

At the end of the climb, we appeared at the entrance of "The Zhuge Liang temple".

Picture: D2 and Shirley our personal guide.