OLD CHINA ON THE RIVER LI.

We board our boat, that looks much like this one, for an 83 kilometer trip up the River Li. Ten thousand people a day tour this river to see mystical rock formations. The river bank is thick with blooming acacia; its fragrance fills the air. I would point out that both of these boats are in motion.

The vendor has hooked his boat to the tour boat and hands off  fresh vegetables and fish to the kitchen. The kitchens on these tour vessels are at the back of the boat in the open air.  We watch fascinated. The vendor is precariously balanced as he hands off his product.

The cook can be seen cutting up a chicken or duck.

The much vaunted rock formations everyone comes here to see are smooth, rounded hills and spears treasured for their mystical appearance and ever shrouded in mist.  I’ve seen professional aerial pictures of them that are beautiful, but I find my photos disappointing. They just don’t seem to have that same mystical effect. It doesn’t matter anyway, life along the Li is a glimpse of Old China and fascinates me.

The Dong people are known for their bamboo boats, houses and flutes. It looks like this boatman is offering a ferry service to get a bicycler and his package to the opposite bank. You can click on these photos to make them larger.

People live on their boats. The house boats we see are put together from whatever scrap can be  garnered.

Cows appear to be free ranging, but if you look closely, you will see their tether rope.

People carry heavy bundles. There is little mechanization.

They hand carry water up from the river the old way.

Water buffalo enjoy cooling off in the river. Notice the one with its head underwater; he is grazing.

Up he comes with a green morsel to eat.

These men have harvested and are preparing some type of green to sell. In China, everyone eats multiple types of greens.

A floating garden held up with oil cans. The bamboo fence and net protects the garden from ducks and flying birds.

People from the villages come down to the river to wash their clothes.

So many make their living from the river and work from their boats.

This fancy ferry boat has a motor. The boatman uses his petrol sparingly and prefers to paddle whenever possible.

We are passing a popular Chinese tourist area.

Everyone walks along the river.

The big draw here is an abandoned Yau village with beautiful 200-year-old buildings. People left here 120 years ago because they were persecuted and moved higher up the mountains.

Maybe the lucky ones are those who live on the river. We see villages of children watching and watering their water buffalo; dogs and pigs roam freely. Whole families living on sampans and all around the storybook shapes of the mystical hills.

SHILIN-UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

To resume my visit to China in 2006, we are in Kunming, The City Of Eternal Spring. It  is a very temperate area  known for its plant diversity. Most of China’s flower species come from Kunming with its  pleasant,  temperate climate. We see commercial flower gardens and orchards around Kunming, but  our tour will take us to  Shilin, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, a surrealistic  “orchard” of stone.

The drive  to this unique landscape  through a three-mile long tunnel, and we worry about it caving in, probably unreasonably so. But, safety isn’t foremost in Chinese projects, we think. The tunnel replaced a twisty, tortuous road, we are told. Then we take a shuttle to the base of the 200 acres of what are called karst towers, formed 270 million years ago as the Himalayas were forming.

It’s a lovely spot by a lake, but the sign that greets us with tortured interpretations was a hoot though well intentioned. We were relieved to know what we buy here will be genuine.

Yunnan Province has many minority people.  And we see them come to Shilin to get married, or celebrate special events in their lives. The most prominent minority in this region is the Yi people. The Suni Muslims are a branch of the Yi people. There are black Yis and white Yis. The black Yis enslaved the white Yis because they admired the rare  black tigers of Asia over the white tigers. The Yi were great hunters and wrestlers, strong and muscular. They walk in fire and have fire torch festivals unique to the area.  Mau banished slavery among the Yis.  Another nearby minority is the Hui people, called barbarians. They arrived here with Kublai Khan.  A very informative website can be found at the following link.
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/yunnan/kunming/stone_forest.htm


The area does resemble a stone forest, which is the common name for Shilin.

The karst formations are  limestone and were shaped by a receding inland sea and harsh winds.

It was an easy,  pleasant  hike through the “forest” and one could imagine what it must have been like for ancient children  to climb and play on the formations.

We hiked around the lake and took pictures. There are caves and waterfalls deeper inside the forest, but we were given a limited time here. Without a guide it would be easy to become disoriented and lost if we wandered too far off the path.

The people in their special native dress were fascinating, anyway.

The costumes are somewhat different, but always the main color of red and yellow.

The Yi men show their single status by the way they wear their feathers. A girl shows interest in a man by touching her horn.

Vicki speculated this was some type of local holiday celebration. It seemed very romantic to us with couples and singlels having their picture taken by the lake.

Near the gift shop, this gent was  fiddling with a musical instrument. We figured there would be a musical event later in the day.

By lunchtime, the place was mobbed.  I saw that under the costume the girls wear street clothes, kind of like we do for high school graduation.


This woman may have been a different minority with similar costume. I enjoyed people watching as much as the stone formations.

The Stone Forest is seventy-five miles from Kunming and actually makes its own weather. At certain times of years, storms roar out of the caves and water cascades from the high formations. We will move on to Urumichi and visit a Yi village.

NEWS?

Last night, I  received a comment from Barbara Bald that newspaper coverage of the Canyon de Chelly accident was practically non-existent. So, right. And, if you don’t know the story, JUST MAKE IT UP!!!
We talked to a person in the park yesterday who told us a Gallup Paper had the accident as a tour bus that went over the rim and landed upright. Totally bizarre.
And, that another news paper claimed two people were killed and that Dr. Crowe was staying in Sedona before his canyon tour. All of this is heresay, of course.  I used to work for a newspaper and I can truthfully say, our paper never made up news.
The little independent newspaper, the Navajo Times contacted Jim yesterday and there will be an article in that paper, but he did not consent to an interview. He told Cindy, the whole story is in the blog.  He gave permission for her to use any of the information and pictures in it. The editor, Cindy,  was gone during the event and that was why she had not reported on the accident before this week.
Even crazier, there are rumors that the driver was drunk. UNTRUE. That he just drove it over the ledge and jumped out and saved himself. UNTRUE.  Again, bizarre. Where does such mean stuff come from?  The driver, Davidson, has made about a thousand trips into that canyon over many years; experienced and professional. There is no communication between the canvas cab of the truck and the passengers in the back.  He stopped and got out of the truck in order to speak to us when we got to a specific site. He could not warn us of his sudden steering problem, for instance. Besides, it happened in five seconds.
This morning, we got an on-line copy of the phoenixnewstimes that is accurate about the accident. You can read it at this link: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/06/canyon_de_chelly_fatal_tour-tr.php
Yesterday, we went to town, did the laundry, shopped for groceries and spent the afternoon reading outside in a cool breeze.  I can’t remember when I spent a day and didn’t take a picture.  So, I’ll take your advice, Barbara, and post more of the canyon pictures. Bless you, I think I needed a reprieve.
And, also, surprisingly, Jim and I received news from Essya Nabbali, one of the victims in the October 2011 bicycle accident with an update of  their case.  (My Blog  entry Black Monday at
http://wp.me/pDCku-2vx )
No word about their personal lives pending litigation, just the results of the trial:

Neal Francis Lawson III, born 1950, Coos Bay, was convicted April 26 of two counts of assault by use of a dangerous weapon, and reckless driving. For the first assault, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, three years’ probation and pay $50,829 restitution plus compensatory fine of $50,000 to Martha McLean. For the second, he was sentenced to 90 days and to pay $78,827.20 restitution plus compensatory fine of $75,000 to Essya Nabbali. His drivers license was suspended five years for both. For reckless driving, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail and five years’ probation. All jail time is to be served concurrently.

And, Oops!  I mis-remembered Martha’s last name as Wright instead of McClean when I referred to that piece earlier.  I hope to shout I’m not perfect.  And this has been a stressful time.  I’ll go back and correct it.

BikePortland.org  website has a long dialogue about that incident, if you are interested.

Now, some soothing pictures:

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This little valley with the green trees looks so inviting.

The canyon is 600 feet deep here and I like to try to get the feeling in the photo that you are looking down into the abyss. I was much more careful when walking out to this edge just because of the accident. It makes no rational sense. Just the body trying to protect itself, I guess.

We found many spots on this rim where catch basins form to hold  water.  I expect this whole area looks different in the winter. The trail is marked by the cairns.

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I took this through a drain hole in the overlook.

These are all from the South Rim that I didn’t publish yesterday.  Here is the link to an album from the North Rim  if you are interested in a slideshow:

https://picasaweb.google.com/106530979158681190260/2012525NorthRimCnyDeChelly?authkey=Gv1sRgCPKsxozb3_L5zgE

SIGNS ALONG THE WAY

When traveling, you become conscious of signs that kind of bend your eye.  I find them clever, beautiful or just plain humorous.  The After Dark Cafe kind of suggests a bit of mystery. Its from the Marigny District of New Orleans.

St. Martinsville even has a street sign for an alley, which I thought was amusing, including the name. No history of why it is so named.

I’ve seen a number of neighborhood watch signs but never with a burglar graphic. Right to the point.

This humorous piece of work was located in a fresh fish shop that didn’t have any fresh fish, as it turned out.

Drive by pictures are less than readable, sometimes. But, in heavily Catholic Cajun Country, this sign struck me as funny. I guess there are malcontents in every walk of life.

This New Orleans establishment did a clever take-off on the Urban Cowboy.

I’m not sure if this is an eating establishment or a Jazz Club. But, in any case, it was a beautiful neon.
Being a perpetual tourist is hard work, as Jim likes to joke. Its nice to rest and do nothing but sit around and read. I’m learning a lot about Louisiana history and enjoying it very much. I bought four books about Louisiana and have finished two of them. What a great state.