Our hot sweaty boat ride

Well, the sign advertised Fansatic Mounpains and Waters.

 Who could resist?

Here's the path we were to travel down the Yangtze from Chongqing all the way to the Three Gorges Dam. The boats look pretty good in the pictures, don't they?

 The bus companies, like the one that took us on the four hour trip to the boat,must have some sort of deal with this place. Believe it or not, this entire town was built about five years ago for tourists. Every single one of these buildings sells the same overpriced crapola from bamboo backscratchers to chintzy buddha crap to drug paraphernalia labeled "for tobacco use only." We went into a little tea house, which was actually a mahjong gambling house during the nighttime, and drank tea on the mahjong tables. They charged us 15 Yuan per person even though Ariel didn't order any tea. About five minutes before we left, a lady came in and turned on the broken air conditioner which sputtered away a little without putting out any cold air. Yep, they charged us 15 Yuan extra for that too.

Once we got settled on the hot sweaty boat, they said they were going to take us to some temple around 11 o'clock. This was a special treat here, because this temple was home to the oldest Christmas light installation in the world!

These Christmas lights were hung by a monk named Lian Chin in the year 189 under the orders of Liu Bei himself!

Here are some ancient paintings and poems written about the glory of the Christmas lights. "Like red peonies they shine for the glory of Liu Bei..."

Here's this guy:

As you can clearly see, the ends of the Christmas lights are unconnected to any sort of power source whatsoever! This is proof in the power of the shining glory of Liu Bei and his general Zhuge Liang.

Monks have to train for hours to become qualified to maintain these Christmas lights and ensure they bend sorta correctly around the statuettes on the corners of the roofs and stuff.

Here is a famous Chinese poet who lived in this temple for about a year and wrote poems about the Christmas lights. He is very skinny. Even then, poets had to struggle to make a living

We also found some baller calligraphy in the temple

Then we all went to bed in the muggy boat and sweated ourselves to sleep. The next morning, about six hours later we were kindly awoken by pleasant Chinese harp music blasted into our rooms around 6:00 a.m., because it was time to go to the next temple! For decades, tour groups have been coming through to see Liu Bei's White Palace, and as a result a thriving industry has sprung up of selling fishes to tourists who are already tired of the overpriced, lousy food on Fansatic Mounpains cruises after only one night. Fish anyone?

 They were also selling deep fried crabs. They'd take these little guys crawling around like no tomorrow in this bowl and drop them right into a big pot of oil. Then oh boy did they craw around!

We all liked the crabs, except for Ariel who's picky.

They were definitely some Fansatic Mounpains out there, though. Don't get me wrong. This is the bridge on the way to the Temple of the White Emperor.

Liu Bei lived in the White Palace, as did his general Zhuge Liang. Liu Bei was actually a crappy emperor, so most of the statues are of Zhuge Liang

Before I left, many folks were counseling me on Chinese security and censorship. You were correct to do so! There are cameras everywhere. Now this looks like an ordinary street lamp, but if you look closely you can see it's actually a camera! Scary stuff.

We didn't know what this sign was trying to tell us to do

 Here's a new friend we made at the Palace of the White Emperor! He said his name was Andy, and wouldn't respond to anything Ping said in Chinese, only English. Bona fide honerary American.

Scary stuff!

This guy was giving me a funny look

This stone grants anyone who touches it good luck and good fortune and more more money and more knowledge. Our Wizard of Videography and our Mississippi Bluesman were very excited at the prospect of more good fortune. Hardly get a chance in China to do something as easy as touching a rock to get good luck!

This was the point I wandered away from the crowd. I found this little guy! I lost everyone else though, and there was some frantic scurrying up and down another set of 333 lucky stairs trying to find them.

Who lives in the palace now? Tour guides live in the palace. Some royal living right there.

Gift shops on the way out: "For Tobacco Use Only"

And finally we had a chance to hang some flags. The other tourists thought the flags were just the coolest thing they'd ever seen. They couldn't get enough of these flags!

Alex Wand, Mississippi Bluesman

The flags, as always, were very beautiful

See that brown one in the middle? I made that flag. It's doing what flags do best, and fluttering around like nobody's business. Too much movement for a good photo.

Alright, I've got about four more minutes of battery, so that's it for now! Tune in next time for more about our hot, sweaty boat ride down the Yangtze on which everyone caught a cold.