Beichuan, China (CNN) -- Meng Shunyou escorts us into the ruins of his old town, his wife clutching their new baby girl on her hip.
"That's our house!" he exclaims, pointing at a pile of rubble. But his excitement belies deep-seated pain. In May 2008, the Sichuan earthquake destroyed their home, their business and the only life they knew. Two years later, Beichuan looks almost exactly as it did minutes after the ground shook. The ruins have been perfectly preserved, now surrounded by gates, guards, and a newly paved road circumnavigating the rubble. Tour buses roll through with passengers gawking at leaning buildings, shattered windows and mounds of debris.
It is a real-life ghost town and a mass grave. Thousands of bodies were never pulled out.
The Meng family ran one of the most popular homestyle restaurants in town, nestled deep in the lush, sweeping valleys of Sichuan province. Their customers would come back again and again, ordering their usual favorites. Over the years their regular customers became friendly faces, if not friends.
