Dujiangyan Irrigation Project

It was a little unclear what we were going to do this day (Bastille day! A big bonjour to my French amis out there), except that I think we were told we’d be going to a mountain to see a temple. As it always is in Chengdu in the summer (subtropical climate, I remind you) it was REALLY hot and humid. We got to the bus and drove for nearly two hours to this dam/irrigation project. According to the my Lonely Planet guide:
“The Dujiangyan irrigation Project was undertaken in the 3rd century BC by famed prefect and engineer Li Bing to divert the fast-flowing Min River (Min He) into irrigation canals. Min River was subject to flooding at this point, yet when it subsided, droughts could ensue. A weir system was built to split the force of the river and a trunk canal was cut through a mountain to irrigate the Chengdu plain.
“Li Bing’s most brilliant idea was to devise an annual maintenance plan to remove silt build-up. Thus the mighty Min was tamed, with a temple erected in AD 168 to commemorate the occasion.” (p. 724)

It was pretty hazy, even up in the mountains, so my pictures didn’t come out as well as I’d like, but you’ll get the idea. The bamboo rope bridges are as scary as they look, I’ll have you know. It was still pretty fun to cross, despite repeated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom flashbacks (yes, I know, that was India. Same basic concept, only we didn’t have deranged priests chasing us. That I know of). At any rate, at the other end of the second bamboo bridge is a temple built into the mountain. To be honest, what I remember is stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. Uneven stairs. The temple was really pretty, but its unclear whether it was a Buddhist or a Daoist temple – perhaps it was Daoists, because it seemed like there were lots of different gods being worshipped there, but my eye is very unpracticed, so basically what do I know? We weren’t really able to find the top of the temple (you just go up, basically), but we did get directions froma woman as to where we could find a Mao statue. Why is this interesting? Because I was able to understand her when she said Mao’s name – I could pick it out of all the other stuff she was saying, which I thought was pretty cool.

Anyway, I was a mite grumpy at the dam (I was worried about all the climbing because I was just getting over a cold), but it was a nice day nonetheless, and people were still talking to me at the end of the day, so I can’t have been too awful.