July 23 - Shibaozhai Temple

July 23:  To The Top Of The Shibaozhai Temple!

As the sun rose this morning we were making our way towards the dock near the Shabaozhai Temple.

It was about 5:30 am when I opened my eyes and as I rolled over I could see through the window that the sun was about to come up so I went up to the observation deck, grabbed a cup of coffee and let the cool gentle breeze rustle through my hair as I watched the sun rising over the Yangtze River......again, it occured to me.....WOW, I'm in China! After my coffee I went downstairs and soon Kim was up and we moved into the dining room to enjoy a light breakfast with our new pals Ron, Nancy, Leslie, and David. Last night was the "Captain's Night Dinner" and everyone was a touch more "dressed up" so we had our photo taken at dinner with two other guests in our "sticky rice" group. You'll note I took the opportunity to wear my new authentic shirt - and I received many compliments :) 

We were off the ship by 8 and began making our way towards the temple. Once we'd walked through the small village we came to the "Drunken Bridge" which bobbed and weaved up and down and side to side as we crossed...made even worse by the large crowd crossing at the same time with us. We were all thankful that we'd begun this adventure so early when it was "only" near 90 degrees. As we crossed the footpath on the dike around the temple we were surrounded by people making it even hotter than it seemed, but we had time to take a photo in front of the historic wooden shrine and then we went inside. At this point everyone had to make a decision - go around the bottom and wait for the brave ones (like Kim and I) or venture to the top of the pagoda. Inside, awaiting us were nine floors with eleven steps between each, for a total of 99 steps on the 400-year-old stairway. Once we got to the ninth floor the final leg of the journey was about a dozen more rock-hewn steps and the only rail was a big chain embedded into the side of the cliff about knee high. I just focused on the steps in front of me and we soon found ourselves at the very top - we'd made it! Prior to leaving for Southeast Asia I'd told Kim there were three "must do" photo ops that I wanted - (1) in front of Angkor Wat in Cambodia; (2) atop the Great Wall of China; and (3) I wanted a photo of us, atop the Shabaozhai Temple. This, I thought would be a rival to our iconic (at least it is to me) photo we had taken above the Rhine River at Marksburg Castle. We got the shot and it turned out great. Ron and Nancy were right there with us the whole way so we had our guide Iowa take a photo of the four of us to celebrate our triumphant mission accomplished! 

"The Group"

Kim, Mark, Don, Nancy, Leslie, David, Jerry & Pam

We pulled away from the dock promptly at 9:30 am as we are on a strict schedule if we are to make it to our final stop by tomorrow morning. This is our final day onboard the Emerald. Bags out by 11 pm and we check out tomorrow morning at 5:30 am. We'll take a short bus ride to the Chonqing Zoo where we'll see the famous Panda Bears, then board a flight to Xian where we check into a hotel for two nights. We've been told it's a fabulous hotel that makes the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai look like a Days Inn!