Shennong Stream

During our Yangtze River Cruise, we took a wonderful day trip up the Shennong Stream. We disembarked from our river cruise boat and boarded a smaller boat which took us most of the way to the stream. The views were absolutely breathtaking. I know that our pictures don’t do it justice, but I hope you can catch some of the wonder of our trip.  We were on the smaller boat, which held about 100-125 people, for about an hour. We then moved to canoes that carried about 15 people and were rowed by a crew of 6 men. The scenery was so beautiful that it was more a spiritual experience for me than one of touristic nature. As we moved along, watching the countryside and mountains pass, my testimony of the heavens was strengthened and deepened.

It was really fun to see these goats on the mountainside. I hope you can see them. Note the brilliant color of the water in the first picture. When it is not overcast, the water is an even deeper jade green. This stream was used by the Badong people to transport goods between villages. Before they built the dam, the stream was 30 feet lower, and rather shallow. Below is a picture I found taken before the flooding of the gorges. Note the major differences between the picture I found online and the pictures we took.

      These were before the flooding of the gorge. Here’s a view of what it looks like now:

We took the above picture from our boat. Each boat had 6 men rowing and as we went along, the men started up a competition between boats to see who could go the fastest. Watching them row was almost painful! Long ago, when these boats were the main source of transportation for the villages and when the stream was shallow (before the dam) the men would row naked. When the stream got too shallow they would get out and pull the boats using ropes. It was explained to us that they worked without clothing because their homespun cloth was so rough that when it got wet it would chafe and rub their skin raw. Here’s a picture of what it used to be like:

 Aren’t you glad that’s not your job? Our tour guide on the boat was a pretty girl in her early twenties. She sang a few of the old folksongs for us, which was very captivating. As we rowed  through the gorge it was almost silent, except for the sound of the oars quietly slapping the water. We were so far from civilization that there were no sounds of airplanes overhead, no sounds of trucks passing nearby or even the sound of a small engine chugging through the water. There were probably about 15 of us on the canoe and for a time we were all quiet, just taking in the beauty of God’s creation. Then, as our tour guide began to sing, I felt oddly small and insignificant. She sang a duet with the oldest rower, who was about 70 years old and actually not rowing. It was a love song, sung in call and response between the two. She was standing at the front of the boat, and he at the back. Wow! It is so easy to get hung up on all the cultural differences that we experience daily. But as I listened to this love song, so different from our culture, yet oddly the same, I realized that we really aren’t different at all, but merely all our Heavenly Father’s children.  We were able to capture this beautiful girl as she sang to us.

After we returned from our canoes to the small boat that would take us back to the river cruise boat, I felt a quite peace that remained with me all day. The following pictures are just more of the amazing scenery that we encountered that day.

I have so many wonderful pictures that it is really hard for me to choose which ones to post. I think I will have to stop here and hope that I have been able to share the serenity and beauty of this place with you. It really was my favorite part of our whole China tour. These last three pictures are of my very favorite things in the whole wide world (not in order of preference!):

My three gorgeous kids!

 

Here’s my two favorite guys in the whole world!

 (My mom once asked Cooper “Why are you wearing your daddy’s face?”… he was really confused!)