Snakes and spiders... and rice

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Said farewell to beautiful Yangshuo, and all the western food that it holds.. and headed by bus to Longsheng to check out the rice terraces.
We were under the impression that our hostel was in DaZhai, where the terrraces we wanted to visit was. As we hopped on a minibus from Longsheng to DaZhai, the hostel owner popped up at our bus window and said "Hello, are you Andrew Sharp?". Turns out the hostel is in Longsheng and she had found us! Riverside Hotel was fabulous, basic accomodation but the lady who owns it was like our own tourguide. "This afternoon you visit the waterfall, then in the morning i will tell you how to get to the DaZhai terraces."
That day was pretty uneventful apart from the giant spider at the waterfall, which i am embarassed to say meant we took the other path rather then trying to go through its web.. and the even larger spider that we wolke up to see on the wall. nice.
Next day we headed up to DaZhai (thankful that she found us the day before as it is a 2 hour drive mainly on unsealed road), got a little confused as at one point the bus stopped and the driver lay back and but his feet up on the wheel, but after about 10 mins we were on the way again.
The terraces are stunning. We hiked up to a small village about one hour walk up the mountain from DaZhai and stayed there (the Longsheng ladies other hotel!) That way we were right in the middle of it all, and could take some different trails from there. The villages are mainly the Miao minority, the ladies are so friendly, all in traditional dress. We were just amazed that they managed to build houses etc up there, we were tired after carrying our small backpacks, but that airconditioning unit had to get up the hill somehow, phew!
Only thing we didnt like was the bright green snake we encountered on the path, it slithered away pretty quick, good thing as we were both frozen in shock!
Amazing lightening storm that night, we could see it lighting up the sky from over the mountains before it was raining or we could even hear thunder. As it was raining the next day we didnt visit Ping An which are the more popular terraces, however from all reports LongSheng is bigger and prettier, and definitely quieter. We didnt see many other tourist the entire day.
Will get some photos up, met some lovely elderly people there and although we couldnt really communicate they were just gorgeous!

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