The people along the Li River are fascinating. There are a few mountainous and difficult roads, but most of the traffic moves on the river. The people use rafts made of 5 or more bamboo trunks lashed together. When the tourisb boats head up the river, the boys head out to sell fans, crystal, watches and other tourist items. It is illegal, so they try to keep a watchful eye out for the police boats. When they see a police boat, they head for shore, grab their bag of merchandise and paddles and head for the hills. The police have no use for the boats, so they leave them. The boys are well-organized. When the first one hit our boat he called his friends on his cell phone.
In the pictures below you can see several of the boys selling stuff and the police boat trying to head them off. The police did confiscate a couple of bags of merchandise and paddles, but never got any boys (that we saw, at least).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.