Roaming Chuck Taylors

The River Trackers are a group of local men whose job it is to physically pull boats up the stream of shallow rapids, using ropes. With the building of dams and shiplocks, the tributaries are flooding or going dry and the trade is slowly disappearing.

In the tour, we boarded sampans manned by five trackers who would paddle us up and downstream between the gorges. They led us to a shallow rapid and demonstrated at their trade by pulling us weighty tourists upstream with sheer manpower. After that, we sailed down the rapid and they paddled us back to the ferry, singing to us in their native tongue as we slowly made our way through the gorges again.