Tourists will have the chance to do just that in late October in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, where a multi-million-dollar construction project to build China's version of the Dead Sea, a well-known tourist attraction in the Middle East, is under way.

The project, dubbed "China's Dead Sea," is in Daying County, about 97 kilometres from Chengdu, the provincial capital.

With an investment of 1 billion yuan (US$121 million) and an area of 133 hectares, the project consists of a four-star hotel, indoor and outdoor heated swimming pools, bowling and basketball courts.

Its construction is based on Daying's rich deposits of bittern, a by-product of the salt-making process.

Bittern was discovered in Daying 1,500 years ago. Proven bittern deposits are around 1 billion tons. The ample supply of bittern water 1,300 to 3,000 metres below ground is ideal for the construction of a "Dead Sea."

But bittern as a tourism resource has long been ignored.

Before the project began, the county's bittern was used mainly for human consumption and industrial purposes.

Each year, only around 120,000 tons of bittern are drilled, returning profits of over 10 million yuan (US$1.2 billion) to the State.

"Bittern will bring the county much more profit with the construction of the 'Dead Sea'," said Wu Zhongxu, general manager of Sichuan Penglai Salt Industry Corporation, which oversees Daying's bittern development.

The proportion of Daying's bittern in water surpasses 30 per cent, higher than that in the Dead Sea in western Asia.

People can float on bittern water without worrying about drowning, Wu said.

According to Jiang Haibing, deputy secretary of the Daying committee of the Communist Party of China, the temperature of water at the mouth of "China's Dead Sea" will be 87 C. The water also contains 43 different minerals and trace elements good for human health.

Last year, a salt lake in Yuncheng in North China's Shanxi Province was built into a "Dead Sea." Within a month of its construction, it attracted more than 10,000 visitors.

Deng Xinming, mayor of Suining, where China's latest "Dead Sea" will be built, is very confident the project will succeed.

It is expected to promote Suining's tourism development, he said.

Suining has mountains, temples, lakes and bittern wells dating back more than 1,000 years which are famous in Sichuan. But they have not achieved fame in the rest of the country, Deng said.

(China Daily January 30, 2003)