Day 20

We were all forced to wake up early. As early as 6.45am, the tour guides came knocking hard on our doors, calling us to wake up for breakfast. It was exactly the same food for breakfast, some had no appetite. By 7.30am, we left the cruise and boarded a ferry which took us to Shennong River. Along the way, there were many ancient relics such as coffins in the crevices, plank roads and tombs. The scenery was very spectacular as you can never see all these things back in Singapore. The feeling of being in a place which is mostly untouched and the nature’s aura around you felt very good. The ferry took about half an hour to reach a barge where we were assigned numbers to sit the manually paddled boats docked by its side. The boat ride was really scary each time the people paddled, the boat was practically rocking on one side as the two heaviest classmates sat on the right side. So there was a feeling of the boat capsizing. Along the way, there was a local guide who briefed us about the surroundings using a loudhailer. The guide then sang some local folks song and we clapped our hands along to the tempo. Well, I did not really enjoy it as I am a person who don’t appreciate these songs. The paddlers u-turn at a certain part and started rowing back. Well, we kept overtaking other boats along the way and we kept cheering on the paddlers to quicken their pace. It was all for fun. At the end of the ride, we gave the paddlers some tips to show our appreciation as we were one of the last few boats which left the dock and to arrive first on the return trip. On the barge, there were people selling souvenirs. One of my classmate was looking at them, he queried about the price of a soft toy. I was behind him and I thought he was buying it. I heard the person offering him 80RMB for a little panda toy. I felt cheated so I told the person that my friend was intending to buy it for 40RMB only. I walked away as soon as I said that. I was quite sure that my friend would not buy it. Little did I know was that, he eventually bought the soft toy. He ran up to me and said that I sabotaged him. I laughed throughout the conversation. He told me that the vendor was pressurizing him and that he had no choice but to buy it. I laughed throughout the conversation and I told him that although I bargained the price for him, he still had a choice of whether to buy it as it was his money. We then boarded the ferry back to our cruise where we had our lunch. Most of us went to play card games to pass the entire afternoon as there was literally nothing else to do. In the mid-afternoon, the tour guide came knocking on our doors, telling us to get up onto the deck to snap pictures of the scenery. Up on the deck, we were told that we were about to see the picture on the back of the 10RMB note in the scenery. There were many other excited guests on the deck together with us taking pictures. Soon we had dinner, after dinner everyone was summoned to have a meeting in which we planned to have a party with the three tour guides who were with us all these while. At night, we formed chairs in a circular shape around two tables. Mr Zhu treated us to drinks and snacks. During the party, we got Aziz to thank the tour guides in Chinese and then we continued chatting and singing songs. We were also taught some country dance by the tour guide. The night passed soon after, everyone went to bed late.