6th May 2011 Trial Point 2 A breath of relief
GPS 28.52”478’N 105.26”981’E Altitude：723ft
In the morning we found Trial Point 2 without problem. It’s in the city centre of Luzhou, next to some high apartment buildings. To our surprise again, having just left the busy city centre, the river at Point 2 is reasonably pleasant and quiet. At least there’s no digger in the immediate area, although another big bridge is being built around the corner (for which I chose to turn a blind eye). There’re buildings on both sides of the river but the river banks are almost left alone apart from being covered by some vegetable patches. There’s a ditch leading to the river but the water doesn’t smell or have strange colours. Many swallows were flying next to the water, and I could see some green grass—-first time during this trip!
At some point a bright-coloured paper house appeared on the bank. I suddenly realised this had something to do with the piles of ashes I saw before. What are they for? I quickly went to the ‘house’ and set up the camera. Before long a group of people arrived with some loud Chinese traditional music. They started running around the house, chanting something at the same time——this is a ceremony for worshipping their dead ancestors. Traditionally they’d do this at the graves but the city is so big now, there’s no space for such things like burning a paper house. So they’ve come to the river, the only place with some open space.
This for me, is one of the charms of the ‘Point system’—-you can never foresee what’s happening next.
