Day 42: Longji rice terraces

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On October 27th, we left yangshuo to see the rice terraces in Longji. The trip didn't go quite as originally planned but all things considered it was a success.

The original plan was to take a bus to guilin, buy our train ticket from guilin to guangzhou for the next day, leave our big bags at the train station, take another bus to Heping, and another bus to ping'an (the biggest of 3 small towns in the rice terraces), and stay the night somewhere. The next day we would hike to Dazhai (another town) which is supposed to take 4-5 hours, then bus our way back to guilin with enough time to catch the train. I'd read that the overnight train from guilin to guangzhou left at 9:50 pm so I figured there was enough time to make our train.

The first part of the plan went ok... after a late start out of yangshuo we took a bus and made it to the guilin train station. Once we got there we found out that the sleeper train to guangzhou left at 6:30 pm, not 9:50. We decided we'd still have enough time for the hike if we left early in the morning, so we left our big bags at the luggage storage at the train station, and packed our small bags for one night at the rice terraces.

We got on a bus to heping, which I thought would take 1 hour, but it took over 2 hours. By this time I think it was already 6 pm and almost dark, and we were a little worried about getting to ping'an and finding a place in the dark. Luckily, as we got off the bus in heping we found a chinese couple that was also going to the rice terraces, but they were staying in Dazhai, not ping'an. We figured we'd have better luck following them to dazhai, so we got in a car with them that they had arranged to take them straight to dazhai.

By the time we got to dazhai it was pitch black, and we found out that you actually have to hike in to town. There was a lady there that had convinced the chinese couple to go to her guest house for 60 yuan a night, so we decided to follow them there. Luckily we both had our headlamps so we were able to avoid all the donkey poop along the trail. The trail took way longer than we initially expected, and it felt like we gained a 1/4 mile of elevation along the way. We found out later that the guest house was actually in Tiantouzhai (3rd of the 3 towns) and that we had actually hiked through tiny dazhai on the way there.

We finally made it to the guest house, and it was kind of a dump. The beds were hard, it was a shared bathroom, and the walls were paper thin. The owner told us that it was 90 yuan a night, but after we protested she offered it for 60. If it hadn't been such a long day we might have gone out to look for alternatives, but we gave in and decided to stay there.

Also at the guesthouse was a group of teenagers from an english school. They were pretty annoying, running down the halls, but at least their chaperon spoke both english and chinese. Through him we were able to arrange a guide for the hike the next morning for 50 yuan. He was worried about our time schedule with the train so he convinced us to start out at 6:30 am to make sure we'd have enough time to make it to guilin.

The next morning we got up before the sun was up, and started the day with a breakfast of fried rice with egg. Steph had tried to order just eggs, but apparently in the rice terraces they eat rice with everything. We hit the trail at about 7 am, following our guide who didn't speak a word of english.

Once we were outside, any bad moods caused from the accomodation and food faded away, because we were surrounded by terraced hills, which we couldn't see in the dark the night before. The hike was great, with constant views of the terraces (see the pictures). We were very glad we hired the guide, because we saw a total of two signs along the way, with about 48 forks in the trail. Towards the beginning two local old ladies followed us for a while, trying to get us to pay them to untie their hair, which is very long. I guess it's one of the things tourists like to pay for, but we were not interested and we turned them down even when they were down to 5 yuan (they started at 20). They kept following us though, until steph bought some post cards from them. She's a sucka. We made good time, and got to ping'an around 10 am.

Ping'an would've been a better choice to stay the night (which was our original plan). There are a lot more guest houses, with the option of american food for steph. We ate a second breakfast there, where steph got some toast and a pancake (more like a tortilla), and I got some coffee.

From Ping'an we found a bus full of tourists that was headed straight to guilin, which was convenient. We made it to guilin with plenty of time to spare before our train. In guilin we took a bus to the touristy section of town and got lunch. We were also approached by a chinese man who spoke very good english. We thought he was just being friendly until he got us to go to his art gallery, and then to his sisters tea house for a tea sample. Oh well - we got free tea and he didn't get a dime out of us.

The train and getting to our hostel in guangzhou is another story which i will save for the next blog. Here are some pictures of the terraces.

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