Bamboo Rafts

The bamboo raft tour is one of my favorite tourist activities in Wuyishan. Groups of five or six ride in bamboo chair on authentic bamboo rafts down a section of river that cuts through the heart of the scenic area. The river has 9 bends on the section traveled, and is often called the "Nine Bend River". Each raft is poled down the river by two guides.

Wuyishan has an active timber bamboo industry, which can supply large bamboo used in the rafts.

If you want to go, be ready to get your feet wet. Their is a place behind the chairs to put your shoes, and there are bars to keep your feet out of the water, but there are no guarantees of staying entirely dry. As the guides do the work of keeping the boat in the current, the hardest part of the trip is getting on the raft. Not physically - the warf is well developed - but the process for getting tickets is a bit complex, and really benefits from good Chinese knowledge. First you have to get tickets, and unless your group is five or six people you have to then wait for the right size matching group to arrive to fill out the boat.