Farming: Chinese-style

We did see a lot of the different valleys and gorges, and we were glad we did. I mentioned the unique style of farming used by the local inhabitants. When you realize just how steep the valley gorges are, and the lack of what we Westerners would consider to be arable land, the answer (I guess) is obvious. Up the slope. This is really thinking outside the box, since there is nothing easy about this process. First off, the land they were moved to was a different makeup of soil altogether. Remember- this new “crop land” was located on the sides of mountains, over 600 feet higher than the old farm land. So the dirt available there didn’t consist so much of top soil as- rocks. Rocks that were hard enough to have withstood centuries of weather. And now a group of about 13,000 farming families were going to plant their livelihood there.

I took many pictures of the various fields, just because they were so amazing. In addition, “Susan” told us that the soil is all worked by hand. All of the rocks that had to be removed, all of the plowing, etc- by hand. And the reason why? Because the pitch of the sloped fields is such that the animals (horses and cattle, for example) would lose their footing and slide down the mountainside. While that seems funny in retrospect…….

After our little outing we again returned to the Century Sun and prepared for sailing. Next stop- Chongquin. This was even more exciting than the Three Gorges Dam because everyone knows that Chongquin=Pandas. And we couldn’t wait. (Unfortunately, lurking at the other end of our visit to the Panda enclosure was another intra-China fight, but you do what you have to do. More about the intra-China flights later)

We cruised throughout the night, enjoyed the on board entertainment such as Bingo, and got the official word about disembarking, paying our bills and understanding the process of getting all 400 of us (and our luggage) to the airport for the flight to Xi’an. Good night- see you tomorrow! Pandas- here we come.