[More pictures from Shennong not really a stream anymore]
We switched to a smaller boat to ride up Shennong Stream. The area is known for its hanging coffins, which were put in caves in the cliff back before written history so nobody knows how they did it. They’ve almost all been taken down now and put in museums or the like, although they did recreate one. Originally the ferry we used could only have made it a short distance up the stream, but with the higher water it could go another twenty minutes.
As the gorge closed up we switched to ‘peapod’ boats, which are about the side of sampans. They had a captain in front and in back with rudders and poles. In the front there were another four oarman. We had a good pace and there were an amazing number of caves and ‘stalactites’ that were really just hanging rocks leftover when the rest of the limestone around them was eaten away.
We finally turned around at the end and saw a brief demonstration of seeing the boats hauled by ropes pulled by the four oarsman. The water high up in the stream is shallow enough that they have to portage. They’re fairly famous for having done in naked with special sandals, as they didn’t have non-chafing clothing. In our case, they just hauled to turn our boat around, which was obviously just for show but still neat. On the way back down, our guide sang a few songs of the traditional Tejid ethnic group. She was a member of it and hadn’t been good enough at math to be the child sent to high school, but had gotten support from her parents to go learn English. She was an excellent singer and I bought a recording of the traditional songs.
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