Submitted by Member Steve Shor

Several years ago I had the good fortune to take a trip to parts of China. It included a few days in larger cities like Shanghai and Beijing, but I really enjoyed some of the smaller cities that we visited as part of the Yangtzee River cruise portion of the trip the most.

 

We stopped in the city of Fengdu that was flooded due to the creation of the Three Gorges Dam project that caused several million people to be relocated to a newer version of Fengdu.  So instead of centuries old buildings and landscape it was a rather modern city.  Still it was interesting to tour and the market area was my favorite place.  It was like a large social gathering of people buying and selling with much noise and hustle and bustle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On one particular day I chose to NOT do the regular tour with our tour group. This worked fine because they were due to come to the market several hours later anyway and they figured we could meet up then. Three of us from the group of some 60 or so Western tourists chose this option.

Being one of very few non- Chinese was fun as I was noticed, but not paid much attention. Only when someone noticed me looking at them with my camera lens did I get some unfavorable reactions. For the most part I was able to spend several hours just walking around and observing with my camera.

Later when the tour group arrived I could tell that the mood and manner of the locals changed as they were well aware that western foreigners were in their midst. It was definitely a better experience for me BEFORE the others came.

The images shown are a selection of many I took that morning.