Cormorant Fishing, Culture Day Party
Thinking we had only a matter of a few hours before leaving for Kung Fu School we grabbed a couple of mountain bikes and headed back down to where we'd seen the cormorant fisherfolk the day before. Although we'd arrived at exactly the same time as the day before,l we'd somehow missed the boats and cormorants so we headed to the big tourist pier fearing huge crowds. However, picked up by touts flapping their arms like the cormorants before the coach park, we found ourselves led a good 2km down back-streets to a secluded spot, closely resembling a spot an Israeli couple had told us about the previous day - what a unique experience!
The cormorant fishing was awesome fun. You basically stand a dozen cormorants on the side of your tin boat, paddle out into the shallow lake and push them overboard. They dive down, doing all the work for you, catching fish which they can't swallow due to the sting tied around their necks. They follow the boat like dogs wherever you paddle. All you have to do is somehow catch them around the back of the head, drag them into the boat and stroke their throats to eject their cargo of fishy goodness into the waiting bowl. A good battle of will and nerves considering the painful bites Martin warned about!
*** VIDEO OF CORMORANT FISHING http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6690393080701515955&hl=en ***
One of the baby cormorants was having trouble telling the difference between a fish and a plastic bottle, but he was at least enjoying his prize-toy!
A cycle ride tacking through back-alleys got us to the Lazy Lizard in time to find out that Petro was going to stick in Dali until the next morning due to the "Japanese Culture Day Party" still being planned by Chris the owner. Ah well another night with western luxuries couldn't be too bad and we'd still make it up the mountain in time for training the next morning. We checked into our hotel for the third time to the amusement of the staff.
That evening we found ourselves a DVD restaurant for the evening at Stella Pizzeria - I had enchiladas and Martin pizza whilst we watched Shaft, heeding the warnings of the vegetarian rice-based food we were destined to eat for nearly a week at the monastery! The Japanese Culture Day party interesting with a group of bongo players filling the courtyard, a compsci who used to work for Kodak and an American from just outside San Francisco. Party wasn't really the word - chillout would have sufficed!
The cormorant fishing was awesome fun. You basically stand a dozen cormorants on the side of your tin boat, paddle out into the shallow lake and push them overboard. They dive down, doing all the work for you, catching fish which they can't swallow due to the sting tied around their necks. They follow the boat like dogs wherever you paddle. All you have to do is somehow catch them around the back of the head, drag them into the boat and stroke their throats to eject their cargo of fishy goodness into the waiting bowl. A good battle of will and nerves considering the painful bites Martin warned about!
*** VIDEO OF CORMORANT FISHING http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6690393080701515955&hl=en ***
One of the baby cormorants was having trouble telling the difference between a fish and a plastic bottle, but he was at least enjoying his prize-toy!
A cycle ride tacking through back-alleys got us to the Lazy Lizard in time to find out that Petro was going to stick in Dali until the next morning due to the "Japanese Culture Day Party" still being planned by Chris the owner. Ah well another night with western luxuries couldn't be too bad and we'd still make it up the mountain in time for training the next morning. We checked into our hotel for the third time to the amusement of the staff.
That evening we found ourselves a DVD restaurant for the evening at Stella Pizzeria - I had enchiladas and Martin pizza whilst we watched Shaft, heeding the warnings of the vegetarian rice-based food we were destined to eat for nearly a week at the monastery! The Japanese Culture Day party interesting with a group of bongo players filling the courtyard, a compsci who used to work for Kodak and an American from just outside San Francisco. Party wasn't really the word - chillout would have sufficed!
posted by Ian Matthias at
11/19/2006 01:26:00 pm
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