Ships sink in the Laoye Temple waters. Lots of them. This is a phenomenon that has been happening since ancient time, thousands of fishing boats, cargo transporters, and military vessels have been lost. Many go down with no apparent cause at all, they are just sucked down into the abyss below. This area on the east flank of Poyang Lake in China’s Jiangxi province is also known as the “waters of death,” “devil horns,” and the “Bermuda Triangle of the East.” Some say that the ships are sunk by abnormal wind patterns, others say that it’s because of whirlpools, some say it’s magnetic fields causing lightening strikes, while others reach more ominous or mysterious conclusions. Whatever the case, these are some of the most treacherous waters in the world.
Laoye Temple sits before a 24 km channel of water which connects Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, with the Ganjiang River’s exit point. It sits between 28.22′ – 29.45′ degrees N latitude, roughly the same as that of the Bermuda Triangle in the Caribbean. To go from the Yangtze River to the Pearl River Delta by inland waterways, you go travel through Poyang Lake. To get through Poyang Lake you must go through this channel, which tapers down from a width of 15 km to 3 km directly in front of the temple, is the only way to get to get through here. Likewise, these notorious waters have been a major transport route since the days of China’s ancient porcelain trade.
