Fengjing - Traveling 1500 years in time

Fengjing town at night in chilling temperature of almost 2 degrees.

My fingers had kind of frozen while I shot this image from another overbridge. 

The sight was much more beautiful when I got on the bridge as seen the top picture. And while

I got down from it to the riverside, the scene left me spellbound and it was worth shooting it.

I was on one of my official trip to China in March. One night I was on my way accompanying a fellow colleague to drop him off to station. It was chilling cold and little i knew that I would cross an interesting sight of beautiful lights. On return from station i asked the driver to stop by the lights, and Lo- behold..! I was seeing in front my eyes set beautifully amidst the darkness of night and decorated in mist of the chilly weather was the majestically beautiful town of Fengjing. Later I came to know that with a history of over 1500 years, this town was one of the most famous town in the late Ming Dynasty of China. Also known as Bainiu or White Ox town, this place by the south of famous Yangtze river is very scenic for its beautiful landscape and river side culture.  After my first glimpse of that night, I again revisited the same place in day time in my next trip to China. This time the place offered me a completely different views. There were red boats floating on the river bed, and were look alikes of Shikaras on Dal Lake in Kashmir.  The sides of the river town had pavements to walk through. Each pavement had a number of rstaurants selling very authentic style chinese food and original Chinese handicrafts. Locals made steam-rice by the river side and offered fish-rice or Pork-rice for meal, wrapped in tree leaves. By-lanes sold beautiful hand made embroideries. And travelers were happy taking a ride in the Red Boats. Hanging trees overlooked the water and the view of narrow river was well intercepted by connecting bridges at regular intervals. It surely was one of the rare experiences in traveling into history 1500 years back and reliving the moments today.

The same town had a very different charisma in during the day time, when the air was slighter warmer

around 7-8 degrees. And yes, It did look like the "Venice of East". Beautiful China preserved its looks

and traditions.

nd the gorgeous water front that had many of these beautiful red boats, were not to be missed.

I fell in love with the lovely 'nature' once again.