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Published: July 16th 2008
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(Day 101 on the road)An overnight train ride from the karst peaks of Zhangjiajie away lies a different world altogether, the rice terraces of Longji (The "Dragons's Backbone"). After a stopover in Guilin to visit the local PSB-office to apply for a visa extension for me (more on that later on, see next blog-entry), backing up our pictures and buying a camera battery for Karen, we headed to the village Longsheng for the night. The next day we took the bus towards Ping'an, a well established tourist-town who sees the majority of visitors that come to the area to see the amazing rice terraces. After checking our very extremely undetailed map ("Not to scale" - nice), we nevertheless decided to get off the bus about halfway to Ping'an, really in the middle of nowhere. And this turned out to be the right decision!
We walked all day amongst these beautiful rice fields all by ourselves, the only people to be seen were a few local rice farmers whom we asked for directions using sign-language, which has much improved after almost a month spent in China already. We spent the night in the small village of Longji with a local family
who cooked an amazing dinner for us, and the next day we passed Ping'an, which was just as touristy as we had expected ("Hello, looki-looki, very cheap"), glad that we did not have to spend any time here. We moved on and stayed for the night in the small mountain village of Zhongliu. The residents here were actually extremely pushy and approaching the village we were greeted my many touts, which was rather unexpected, considering that not many tourists make it here (the town is only accessible by foot, the nearest road being about 4h walking away). We were certainly the only tourists by far, and after a while we found some accommodation in the lower part of the village, again with a nice family and yet again tasty food. The shower that night took place in a small river-made pool close to a waterfall, which was rather cold coming from the mountains above but a great experience (also for the locals I assume who have probably never seen a naked German washing himself in their river).
That night, we had a walk around the village and stumbled across a local funeral ceremony. One of the villagers, aged only
50, had passed away, and the whole town had gathered to mourn his death. It was a strange experience: There was a priest and his assistant with a bell who were chanting, some villagers were playing traditional musical instruments, one guy was throwing loud fire-crackers to scare the ghosts away, and the the women were standing close to the coffin chanting and mourning. After all that a wide selection of food was served for everyone to enjoy. And Karen and I right in the middle of it all, what an experience!
The third day, we got up early and walked to the village of Dazhai, from were we caught a bus that would take us back to Longsheng, where we connected back to Guilin. The bus was old and made funny noises, and sure enough it broke down about halfway through the three hour journey, and we had to change buses along the way. Back in Guilin we found a very nice hotel and enjoyed the hot showers and the comforts of the city after 4 days out and about.
Next stop: Guilin (Guangxi Province, China).
To view my photos, have a look at
pictures.beiske.com.
And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete
book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).
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Rachel
non-member comment
WOW! I admire you :)
I was looking online for some information about Longji, and came across your blog. Its refreshing to see someone who gave up so much - work, etc - to travel around the world. In Sept 2009, I came to Huanngang, China. I came here for two reasons: 1) to teach English and 2) TRAVEL! Congradulations! You are truly living the dream! I'm very, very envious, having tons of respect for you as well. How long do you think it will take you to finish your travels? Where so you stay? Hostels? Or do you stay with friends that you have made along the way? I wish you all the best!! ~Rachel