On one Saturday morning we set out with a group of students and teachers to scale TV Tower Hill, a local landmark in Yangshuo. The climb was rather epic as the heat and humidity were intense, but the views from the top were worth it. It is the perfect spot to view the town and the Li river.
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Cormorant Fishing
The Chinese are very skilled at agriculture, farming and fishing, and have learnt many methods to work efficiently without requiring machines. They have developed ways of training animals to greatly help them, and nowhere is this more evident than in cormorant fishing.
Cormorants are duck-like birds that are skilled underwater swimmers. Somehow the local fisherman have managed to train the birds to swim along with their rafts, catch the small fish in the Li river, and return them to the boat. The birds have rings around their necks which prevent them from eating the fish, but the fisherman let them have a small proportion of the fish to keep them happy.
We set out to see this fishing at dusk, and cruised along the river from the Yangshuo port until we met up with the fisherman. He only uses a gondola-style pole to propel the raft along the river. His raft has a couple of bright kerosine lamps which may help the birds to see the fish as they swim alongside the raft.
We saw quite a few birds coming up out of the water with fish flapping in their beaks, and after the pleasant cruise we were given an opportunity to come to closer terms with the amazing creatures.
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