Round portholes
Onto the riverbed.
Jpbowen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 三猎 — CC BY 4.0 · Yumeto — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 三猎 — CC BY 4.0 · Litanwei — CC BY 3.0 · 萧星珙 — Public domain · Jpbowen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Yumeto — CC BY-SA 4.0
A unique museum beneath the Yangtze that protects Baiheliang, «White Crane Ridge», a rock ledge 1.6 kilometres long that rose above the water when the river ran low in winter, which the Chinese used for more than twelve centuries as a gauge of the river's level, carving fish on it to mark the lowest water. The ledge bears 163 inscriptions and pictures, 114 of them records of the river's level beginning in 763, the longest such sequence in the world. When the water rose behind the Three Gorges Dam and covered it by more than thirty metres, a museum was built over it and opened in 2009: visitors go down a long escalator in a tunnel under the river, then see the inscriptions and carved fish through round portholes looking onto the riverbed. Tickets cost CNY 50, and it is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9 am to 5 pm, ticket sales stopping at 4.30 pm, closed on Mondays, per visitor guides.
Onto the riverbed.
The ancient gauge.
Under the Yangtze.
Yangtze riverbank, Fuling District, about 100 km east of central Chongqing
Halal choices are few in Fuling, so bring food or eat in Chongqing, where restaurants run by Hui Muslims carry the halal sign.