What do you do when it rains on a cruise?

Rain.  It happens a lot in April.

 Alice spent time finishing a good book.  

And we hung out a lot on the back side of the boat under the porch, seeing the scenery we'd already passed by, but seeing it without the rain drops in our eyes.

And we played some card games or chatted with others in the group.

I met one woman who has been cruising since February, starting in New Zealand, going to Australia

and then on to China.  I don't know if I'd like doing that or not.

 A monument to the river trackers--the locals who made their living dragging boats up the river.

The pole shows the rope marks etched in from decades, or even centuries of use.

 I loved the light houses along the way.  But even more fun is the patchwork fields going up the hillside.

This area produces a lot of oranges.  And we saw crops being planted on the soil below the full-mark.

I was curious and asked our Chinese guide.  The "spring" run-off doesn't arrive until about September, and so a crop can be planted and harvested before the water rises for those enterprising local families.

On Friday afternoon, we left our ship and boarded a smaller ferry for a trip up a smaller canyon.

I saw these small wooden boats that looked like they would be safe for about 2 people.

 And then they loaded 15 of us in each boat!  And that's besides the 5 crew members.

They're called "pea pod" boats for obvious reasons.

 The men rowed with these rustic wooden oars that looked inefficient,

but we got where we were supposed to go.

One of the controversial aspects of the Three Gorges Reservoir is that many of the

people displaced were minorities.  But this minority group has found

a great way to make a living--rowing tourists.

It's probably as good a living as most here in China.