Lean like a bobsled team.

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Now if your confused about the title, don't worry. I'll explain later on in the blog. But for now I'll start from the morning of our 2nd day in Guilin. After seeing pretty much all that we wanted to see in Guilin we were off to a place called Longshen. Famous for there amazing rice terraces. We were able to find a bus from Guilin to Longshen quite easily. But during our wait we had to do everything we could from vomiting. The entire 20 mins that we had to sit in the train station, people all around us were hacking and coughing up flem (and who knows what) and spittin' it everywhere. I thought the Regina bus station was bad. Oh no. This train station was so sketchy that even a Regina bus hobo would be disgusted. Ignoring the spit tournament going on around us, we noticed our bus pull into our gate number. We hopped on and were off for hopefully another great day. We arrived in Longshen and found the connecting bus that would take us high into the mountains that had the rice terraces.
I don't know why I'm constantly doing things that require me to test my fear of heights but today would be yet another one of those days. The bus ride started off nice going through awsome villages and small towns. Then the hills started coming. Up one hill and down the other. A turn here and a turn there. Hey thats cool. Thats alright. But when we started to climb the mountain thats another story. This road had to be one of the curviest roads on the planet. And not only was it extremly curvey but extremly close to the edge. Oh but don't worry. Theres a couple bamboo trees and one foot high cement blocks that would definetly stop us and the truck from plumiting to our death. I later found out that the mountain reaches to about 3608 feet. Obviously not the biggest in the world but big enough to make you lean like your a bobsleder. When you see a straight drop and your going around a curve that is a little more than a U-turn you want to lean just to make sure if for some reason the van was to tip the weight would be on the right side. Sadly enough it was just Bev and I leaning which must of made the chinese people on the bus wonder what in the world we were doing.
Once we made it to the top we had to hike up for about an hour. Along the way up we passed a little village and many old women who had handmade crafts and shoes for sale. The view from the top was amazing even though there was no water in the terraces due to the fact it is winter. We spent a about an hour taking pictures and looking at all the crafts and buildings. We then decided we had enough and set back to catch our bus back which we would soon find out had already left. So after trying to find another bus for a decent price we decided we would just wait about an hour and hope the bus would come back with new tourist and we could eventually get down off the mountain. Luckily it did and we set off down the hill. The trip down wasn't nearly as bad as the trip up but still made you nervous.
Now I'm not entirly sure how rice grows and why they have these huge rice terraces up in the mountains but they were defenitly cool. I only wish I could have seen them during the period where all the terraces are filled with water. Another great day even though 6 hours were spent traveling there and back. I defenetly recommend traveling by bus if you have only a short trip becuase your able to see the country side which is so different from the city.

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Photos

Rice Terraces 3
This is a good shot to see the depth of the terraces

Rice Terraces 2
A fairly new village hidden in the mountain.

Comments

[Aunty Janet]

Longshen
What wonderful scenery, well worth the harrowing bus ride and the hike, I'm sure.

[Aunt Val]

LOL
Man, I have laughed out loud reading this story Preston. You and Bev have been so much more adventurous than I ever imagined you would!