Saturday 15th November 2014

Raft Ride Along the Yulang River – Cormorant Show

This is the first day of our wonderful adventure that we have not had to set the alarm clock. It is 8.50 am and we woke just a few minutes ago. We decide to go for breakfast, which is served either inside the dining room or on the riverbank. (No prizes for guessing which setting we choose). So, we are now sat with the beautiful view in front of us. Wow, we are so lucky! When planning our trip, we booked bed and breakfast at each hotel as opposed to room only. The hotels so far, have had a buffet on offer. This small riverside retreat offers a choice of five set breakfasts.

We think this is a good idea, as it should ensure a minimum of waste. I have chosen tea, freshly squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs, toast, jam, muesli and yoghurt – sounds like quite a feast! Dave has ordered coffee, orange juice, toast, jam, scrambled eggs and bacon. Everything is delicious and we are enjoying relaxing in this lovely setting.

The poster advertising the rafting shows a photo of the river with many rafts on it. Once again we remark on how fortunate we are as there are not many tourists during this season. The cost of the rafting is the equivalent of £20; this includes the taxi ride to the place where the rafting begins. We paid the driver, he paid another man and one of the rafters took my hand and led me across maybe five rafts before getting to the one that we would use.

The rafts are made of six thick pieces of bamboo, and two chairs are tied on them. For one and a half hours, we moved slowly down the river, admiring the pretty scenery. Once again we saw different shaped karsts. It was very relaxing.

 

 

The young rafter continually turned his pole over and over. He didn’t offer us any shoe protectors; instead he simply shouted a warning ‘legs up’ as we approached the first weir. We didn’t need telling again for the following ones. We passed our hotel and saw people sat by the river watching the rafts go by as we had done yesterday. One raft got stuck on one of the weirs and the punter struggled to free the raft.

 

At the end of the relaxing raft ride, we watch as the men quickly unbind the chairs from each raft and load the rafts and chairs onto a wagon to be taken back up river to the start. The raft punters are taken back up in an elongated golf cart. We learn later that it is a government cooperative that manage the rafting.

 

We enjoy the twenty minutes or so walk back to the hotel. We pass lovely trees and flowers and also a rice paddy. The small one-toothed elderly lady is leaning on the gate to our hotel again selling postcards. She used the Chinese sign language and crossed two fingers to indicate that the price was 10 Yuan. Fortunately Jessica had taught us one to ten in the sign language, so we understood.

It was 1pm so we decided to order some lunch and have a beer. We relaxed again by the river. I booked a massage for 3.30pm. It cost less than £20 for an hour and a half treatment – an absolute bargain!

We were picked up to go to the cormorant show just after 6pm. On the way we asked about the arrangements for the following day when we will drive to the Longji rice terraces. Marco informs us that close to the village there is a secure place where we can leave our luggage, he added that it was a 20 minutes walk to our hotel and that as the terrain had many steps it would not be possible to pull our suitcases. So he advised that we pack a rucksack only, a porter would be available for hire if we wished someone to carry it for us.

We arrived at a river and boarded a small boat; a family including three children joined us. It was very dark and the boat took us to the middle of the river where we could see a long, narrow bamboo raft with a fisherman and four cormorants.
For hundreds of years cormorants have been used for fishing in this part of the world.

 

The cormorant’s throats are tied so that the birds cannot swallow the fish with the exception of extremely small ones. When a bird catches a fish the fisherman takes it back on the raft and removes it from the birds throat. Three of the cormorants dived a number of times, the other one did not leave the raft and Dave nicknamed it ‘Mr Supervisor.’ No doubt ‘Mr Supervisor’ would have been very disappointed with the evening’s catch as only one small bright orange eel was caught and its predator swallowed it immediately. The boat stopped on the riverbank and the fisherman said that we could hold one of the cormorants. Although at first the four of us said that we didn’t want to hold one, we all did. The cormorant’s webbed feet felt strange on my arm.

 

 

 

 

 

We returned to our hotel and enjoyed another tasty meal with a glass of wine or two. Another wonderful day!

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