The Bend in the River
China 2003
A boat filled with tourists chugs down river, or maybe it is up river. Not sure. Tourists are big business on the Li River. Fishermen who used to spend their days and maybe nights fishing with cormorants now make more money posing with their birds than they ever did fishing.
Karst mountains and fishtail palms provide the backdrop to the shallow and slow-moving river. The cruise takes about three hours. Young women pass through the crowd of passengers selling shots of snake wine…an alcoholic beverage with the carcass of a snake floating in the bottle. I didn’t try it but someone told me that it was not pleasant tasting. For the Chinese, this is medicine. Each type of snake confers a specific benefit depending on what ails you.
What I did enjoy was the dining room. They served a tiny steamed crab, the size of a walnut, in one of those delicious Chinese sauces. I popped each one into my mouth and ate it shell and all. It was delicious. My friends were horrified. They wouldn’t eat anything from the boat’s kitchen fearing that the water of the Li was contaminated.