My Yichang Chongqing Yangtze Cruise ( The Third Day )
( Boat excursion to Shennong Stream )
( Boat excursion to Shennong Stream )
Dec 28, 2005
7:00 Breakfast
10:00-14:00: Boat excursion to Shennong Stream
14:00-17: Passing Wu Gorge
17: Dock at Wushan County
The breakfast is good too from 7:00am.
Today's highlight is the Boat excursion to Shennong Stream. Shennong Stream is a tributary of the Yangtze River, with 60 kilometers long, popular with its special virtues of serenity, uniqueness, primitiveness and wilderness.
We first change for an environmental protection boat "Chang Shen No.01" and cruise upstream along the Shennong Stream for 16.8km, passing through the natural Shennong Little Three Gorges - Longchang Gorge, Parrot Gorge and Shennong Gorge, enjoying the mesmerizing scenery on either bank. This tranquil river, with its towering peaks, is a pleasing counterpoint to the surging power of the Yangtze River. It is a thrill to find some suspended ancient coffins, natural ancient villages...
40 minutes later we arrive at Luoping Tourist Reception Center where we again change for an ancient wooden boat called "pea-pod boat", which are designed by local people of Tujia tribe. They use oars, bamboo poles, and raw human strength walking along the stream bank.
When the stream becomes quite shallow and narrow, the Tujia men simply jumpe out of the boat, harness themselves with ropes, and pull the boat upstream. The trackers of Tujia are a resilient and ancient people, descendants of one of the earliest ethnic groups here, the Ba people. The Tujia make boats, their ropes and even sandals from local materials, especially from bamboo. "Pulling a boat" upstream by walking through the shallow stream by the bank is the ancient way in which all boats went up the Yangtze or the smaller tributaries before the era of the steam and motor.
So our pea-pod boat drift on the calm river for 2km to the Jiukong Rock, then continue to drift upstreamfor 2km to Yaojia Beach with the help of the local Tujia trackers. Then we turn around and sail back to the Luoping Tourist Reception Center for a local buffet lunch. The lunch is a Tujia flavor, a very good food.
After lunch, we are on board the environmental protection boat "Chang Shen No.01" and sail back to our big boat - M.S. Century Sky. The whole trip of the Shennong Stream excursion is about 43km and takes 4 hours.
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