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Longji Scenic Area
Sunrise at Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. It’s an hour bus ride from Guilin to Longsheng, then another 30 or 40 minutes up to Longji Scenic area and a 10 minute climb up to Pingan village. You come here to visit the rice terraces called “Dragon’s Backbone” and they’re amazing.
The morning after I arrived I ate a large bowl of noodle soup containing chicken pieces and tomatoes for breakfast, then set off, destination Dazhai village on the other side of the hills. The trail was good, flat paving stones of light-coloured rock and at first it went up a bit steeply to Scenic Lookout No. 1 on the Pingan side. Beautiful vista of water-filled fields, the rice spears all about half-grown, the hills going down steeply in contours.
I continued onwards, not hurrying. Along the way I met local ladies wanting to sell me postcards or black bags embroidered in blue, yellow, red, white and green. Others, dressed in traditional costume, wanted me to pay them a few yuan to take a photo of them with their hair down. Pingan is reputed to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the village where the most women have the longest hair. Some postcards I
Longji Scenic Area
These have been created over centuries, perhaps millennia. saw showed at least one standing on a rock beside a stream with her hair hanging down past her feet. Other ladies wanted to guide me along the paths, swearing that I’d get lost for sure. I declined all offers, happy to explore alone with all my money in my pocket.
At first the day was a bit overcast and hazy but later in the morning the sun came out and the temperature warmed noticeably. I crossed the Pingan terrraces and followed the trail through forest to Zhongjie Liu, a small collection of dark wooden houses. As I approached the village locals offered to feed me at home, but I wasn’t yet hungry. At the village a particularly insistent woman hung around trying to sell me things as I drank a tea at a small general store. She followed me out of the village, pushing hard to be my guide. When I tried to ask others for directions she called out to them, saying not to tell me the way. I finally left this entirely annoying woman behind when she realized I would give her no business.
I continued through the forest, up a long slope where I
Longji Scenic Area
Like three-dimensional contour lines on a map. encountered a group of kids with a bicycle. There are no roads here and the trail is steep and rough, so I couldn’t see how a kid could ride a bike up here, but there they were and there it was.
Soon I came to the next set of teraces under a bright, hot sun. The trail led through them and ultimately brought me to a small shelter for resting where a man stood, waiting. I asked the way to Dazhai and he pointed to it, then follwed me. At a fork in the trail I again asked him the way and he indicated I should follow him to the next scenic lookout. By now I’d been walking four hours, hadn’t eaten and was tired. I suspected he wanted to lead me to a hotel or restaurant, so I followed and turned out to be right. A beautiful place called Tiantou with a magnificent view of hills across the valley like a rumpled green duvet, terraces below.
I stopped there for a meal and decided to spend the afternoon and night. I relaxed in the peace and quiet with birds chirping, a few flies buzzing and a cat
Longji Scenic Area
Tiantou villager rolling a cigarette with a bit of newspaper. that wound in and out around my ankles. Another insistent woman came through and tried to sell me more postcards. I offered to trade mine for hers, saying they were a good deal for her because mine already had stamps, addresses and messages on them. She declined and tried selling me other things and began to irritate me, despite my poite but firm No thank you. I finally had to ask the hotel owner to tell her to leave me alone. I suppose she and the others desperately need money, or have learned that being pushy brings results with foreigners who cave in after a while to avoid causing offense or just to end the pestering.
Later a farmer came by, squatted down beside me and rolled a cigarette using just a piece of newspaper to hold the tobacco. He was friendly and smiling and we tried to communicate but couldn’t. He didn’t want anything from me other than perhaps just to look at me. He stayed a while, then left without saying or waving goodbye, just a man going about his business in the hills above Tiantou.
Late in the afternoon two guys about 20 years old
Longji Scenic Area
Not really a mountain bike, but certainly a bike in the mountains. showed up, led there by a guide they’d hired: Yaowen Yap and Xing Heng Kwa. Yaowen stuides at Kenyon College in the USA and Xing is about to head off to do the same at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Both Malaysian of Chinese descent, they spoke very good English. We spent the evening chatting about a broad range of topics. They were very good company in a very good setting.
The following morning I rose early and, with Yaowen and Xing, we set off towards Pingan. The sun was up, although the light was a bit hazy. We hurried along the trail and this time the ladies gave me much less attention, probably because I was with the other two. We crossed quickly all the terrain I’d covered the previous day and at 10h30 came to Pingan, then went down to the parking lot below to catch a bus to nearby Longsheng. On the highway we encountered a bus going towards Guilin (our next destination) and our driver signalled to the other bus. We made a quick switch and two hours later were in Guilin.
Ticketless, I rushed out to the airport to see if I could catch a
Longji Scenic Area
Yaowen (left), Xing and I at Scenic Lookout No. 1 above Pingan village. flight to Kunming and would have missed the plane had it not been delayed. At 17h00 I was several hundred kilometres away from the tiny village of Tiantou above Dragon’s Backbone where I’d woken that morning.
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