Day 9: The Cangshan Mountain (1)

Day 9: 4th July 2011

Our original itinerary for the day was a trip up the Cangshan Mountain on a cable car - but our smart guide, Maggie, suggested that we visited the ChingSheng Temple Complex instead, which she reassured would be a great tour. In fact, this visit was not included in the itinerary. It turned out to be a good plan. The Cangshan Mountain was covered in heavy clouds and we would not have been able to see much from up there.

Dali was, for hundreds of years, the capital of a very powerful ChongSheng Empire. The Emperor was successful in keeping the many tribal natives of Yunnan to live peacefully and being in a fertile region with abundant water-supply from the vast Erhai Lake - the region suffered no drought and famine and was an important stop of the silk and tea traders.

The Han Emperor who ruled North China one day had a dream about a beautiful and rich country in the South and sent out a regimen to discover and conquer the region. But Dali, being in a strategic location, surrounded by mountains around the Erhai Lake was not an easy prey - what more with a country united under an Emperor who could fight off the invading Han. Several other bigger missions from the North also failed until, as usually the case, corrupt traitors from within the establishment - worked in cahoots with the invaders to overthrow the Emperor.

Yunnan, was at a later date, also invaded and conquered by the powerful Mongolians.

The Temple Complex of ChongSheng is a vast complex of temples and palaces, its grandeur easily could match the Forbidden City of Beijing. The above history , inaccurate it may be - was what pakdokter could recollect from the narrations of our guide, Maggie - who was turning out to be a good and hard-working guide as our Naxie Ms Beautiful Goose in Lijiang.

the ChongSheng Temple Complex was located on the slope

of the Cangshan Mountain

to walk up and down the complex would be quite a hike

so we [aid for an electric buggy to go up

after which we walked down slowly which was a much easier option

many lovely pavillions at different levels of the mountain..

Maggie, our lovely 'Bai' guide...