But I digress (as usual). The first excursion was to visit the Tribe of Three Gorges scenic area. It was a lush cliff-side walkway that wound around the shore of a small inlet which ends at the Yellow Dragon Falls. All the local guides were young ladies dressed in the traditional regional style of clothing (full length sleeves and pant legs of 100% silk supposedly keeps you cool in the heat, but man it looks hot!) and there were old Chinese junk boats strategically stationed at all picture-perfect vistas, complete with traditionally dressed fishermen and young ladies posing under their parasols. And of course the “wild” macaques that gather around the tourists who purchase peanuts to feed them.
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| Traditional Dress for Boy & Girl |
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| Traditional Musician |
The lush green cliffs were stunning! Very picturesque of what we think of old rural China. Before the Yangtze was flooded to create the dam, the three tribes that lived in the area were referred to as those that lived on the mountain tops, those that lived on the shore, and those that lived on the river. One cool aspect was that 2000 years ago, the villagers buried their dead in coffins which they would tuck into alcoves way up on the cliff faces to get their ancestors closer to heaven. It’s still debated how this was accomplished with ancient technology: did they use ropes to suspend themselves & the coffins from the cliff tops to carve out the niches, or did they build wooden plank roads up the cliff side to carry the coffins up. Either way, we could still see a couple coffins way up high in the cliff, which was impressive. (NN: Each coffin is made of heavy wood and could be 700 lbs each. The prehistoric people thought the higher the coffins were up the steep cliffs the safer they would be. Considering that anything that was less than 100 m above the original elevation of the Yangtze River is now flooded due to the Three Gorges Dam, looks like they were right.)
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| Suspended coffins in upper right hand corner |
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| Wooden Coffins |
They also put on a wedding performance (think theme park show) complete with songs and bouquet throwing. (NN: Just like a Western wedding catching the bouquet means you are next to marry.)
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| Bride & Bridesmaid |
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| Bride meets groom |
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| Wedding Song |
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| Musician |
There were some resident macaques in the area as well.
At the end of the valley we finally got to see the waterfall.
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| Nick cooling off Chinese-style |
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| Chinese Junks |
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| Traditional vs. Modern Vessels |
But I digress (as usual). The first excursion was to visit the Tribe of Three Gorges scenic area. It was a lush cliff-side walkway that wound around the shore of a small inlet which ends at the Yellow Dragon Falls. All the local guides were young ladies dressed in the traditional regional style of clothing (full length sleeves and pant legs of 100% silk supposedly keeps you cool in the heat, but man it looks hot!) and there were old Chinese junk boats strategically stationed at all picture-perfect vistas, complete with traditionally dressed fishermen and young ladies posing under their parasols. And of course the “wild” macaques that gather around the tourists who purchase peanuts to feed them.
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