Trekking on the Dragon's Backbone

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After reaching Guilin from Yangshuo on the short one hour bus ride, we were dropped at the main bus/train terminal and immediately greeted with pollution, chaotic traffic and crossing the main road felt like we were risking our lives. Our first imprssions of Guilin were not great, but we were not here for the city, but to gain access to the Longji (Dragon) rice terraces which are located between 2 - 3 hours outside of town.

Our first job was to locate our hostel 'Wada' which was three stops away on the local bus - this was easier said than done but once we had found out which bus and direction to head in we didn't have too many problems. Upon check-in, we immediately fell in love with the hostel - it had a great backpacker vibe, a pool table, various activities for guests (including a dumpling making party the night we arrived) and great travel information. After settling in and freshening up, the first thing we needed to sort out was our how we would get to the rice terraces. We were not keen on doing an organised tour as we had heard you only get limited time on the actual terraces, so we asked reception what our best bet was and were informed that if we could gather a further 4 people, we could organise a private mini bus to take us there and back for a reasonable price - so we put our names up on the notice board asking for other people to join and then headed back to the train station to try and arrange our onward train to Shanghai for 2 days time, which would be our first overnight sleeper and a 20 hour journey.

We got to the train station and started to queue up to get the tickets, when we realised we didn't have enough money on us, so Scott went off to find a cash machine. As I moved further to the front of the queue, Scott came back and said the machines would only take Chinese bank cards which was annoying, so I kept letting people in front of me while he went off to find another atm which would work. He came back 15 mins later with no luck, so we left the station and walked 15 minutes back to our hostel, who said there was a bank across the road which our card would work in, and luckily it did! So back to the train station we went and armed with the train we wanted to get written in Chinese (by the hostel, as the train station ticket attendants don't really speak English), we got two tickets for upper bunks on a train leaving in 2 days time. We got back to the hostel just in time for the dumpling party and enjoyed an evening making dumplings and chatting with fellow travellers, as well as securing a group for the trip to the rice terraces the next day.

Up early the next morning we grabbed a quick breakfast to set us up for the day ahead and 7 of us piled into a mini van (us, an Argentinian couple and 3 French girls) to take us first to Longsheng, the town where the rice terraces start, 2 hours away and then onto Dazhai, a rural village in the rice terraces a further hour away. The rice fields rise up to 1000m high and are an amazing feat of farm engineering on hills dotted with minority villages. We chose this part as it is further than other parts so less visited and apparantly has some of the best views of the terraces. Well it didn't dissapoint - we trekked for 5 hours through incredible scenery, higher and higher until we were looking down at tiered rice terraces which were just begining to be harvested for the new season. Luckily they were still quite green, although some had turned golden where they were being burnt off - by December we were told they are covered in snow. The views were amazing and it was a really clear/sunny day, so we all kept stopping to take it all in, plus we only passed a handful of other trekkers (and a few local ladies who loved to say 'hello' to us) so it was really serene and peaceful on the trails. On the way we stopped to see the Seven Stars and the Moon viewpoint and the Music from Paradise viewpoint which offered unparralelled views over the rice terraces meandering below.

Most of the hike was up hill which got tough at times but the higher we got the cooler it got, so it wasn't too bad. Once we had been going about 2 1/2 hours and were at the top we decided to head back down a different way and stop in a tiny village called Tian-Tou for a bite to eat at a local place. Now when I say local I mean LOCAL - it was run by a Chinese minority family who were very sweet, but I don't think had seen Westerners for years and we were a big attraction for them. Strangely, they had a menu with some English translations on but they couldn't understand a word of it, even when we pointed to the Chinese writing underneath, and had to call in help from a local guy who spoke a couple of words of English and could understand the Chinese. We had a feast of mixed rice and vegetables on an outdoor table where we had panoramic views across all the terraced paddie fields below which was priceless, even if Scott's veg looked like it had just been picked off the trees!

We carried on down the paths to the bottom where we had started, it rained a little on the way which made it slippery but soon stopped and we reached the bottom of Dazhai around 4.30pm where our driver was waiting to take us back to Guilin after a tiring but brilliant day trekking. We all tried to fall asleep on the 3 hour drive back, but due to the sheer craziness of the driving here and the bumbpy roads it was impossible. The Chinese drivers are pretty terrible we have found (we saw several crashes on the way up and back from the rice terraces), and although they don't drive particularly fast, they seem to have no idea when to overtake or pull out - our driver especially favoured overtaking on blind corners round mountain bends when coaches and trucks were approaching us head on, then beeping and quickly swerving back to our side of the road, or narrowly missing people on motorbikes who would just pull out in front of us without even looking. This continued almost the whole way back to Guilin, and even on the main highway, he would still ovetake at the most dangerous points and have to brake sharply to avoid missing a car/person. It made for a hair raising journey back and we decided to stick to the trains on the overnight journeys we would be taking over the next few weeks here and avoid the buses which would probably be far worse.

Anyway, safely back in Guilin we were starving so we crossed the road to what we now called The Prophet (aka McDonalds!) for a much needed carb fest before going back to the hostel, playing some pool and chatting with our group from that day until around 11pm. Today was definately one of our best day's of the trip so far!

The next morning we chilled at the hostel, did some internet stuff, went to the supermarket to get some supplies for our overnight train journey (pot noodles, chocolate, buscuits, water etc) and then headed to the train station in the afternoon for our long 20 hour trip to the modern city of Shanghai...



S&V's Travel Info & Tips:

General Info: Approx 10 RMB/Yuan to £1. Try to organise any trip to the rice terraces with other travellers as organised tours were expensive and only get limited time on the terraces. Also, watch all belongings closely around the main train/bus station as we heard a few stories about people being pick-pocketed there.

Transportation: Buses from Yangshuo to Guilin are frequent and only cost 18 RMB per person - journey time about an hour. Normal buses in Guilin are 1 RMB - Take a number 10 three stops from train station to Wada Hostel.

Food: Mmm, because we were just outside the main centre of Guilin and only there for one full day, our choices were limited to PotNoodles, KFC or McDonalds - Ronald won on most occasions.

Accomodation: Wada was a great hostel, with a great vibe and friendly staff. A private room was 110 RMB. Food and drink at the bar was reasonably priced and they even had a few 'cinema' type room's aswell as a pool table.

Other observations:

x) The driving is amongst the worst we have ever encountered, no one looks, indicates or pays any attention to traffic lights, other cars or people - It's like a big game of Mario Kart.

xx) In the minority villages along the rice terraces, do not be suprised if YOU become the local attraction.

xxx) We now eat almost exclusively with chopsticks (apart from at the prophet - see above)

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Comments

[Chloec]

Me again
Now I have started I feel like I should make a oui comment on every blog just so you know I ma reading and appreciating each and every entry xx Sounds amazing and jsut not at all what you picture China to be when you think of it, more of the native side I guess rather than the hustle bustle polluted citities you see on the news and stuff. You both always look rather trendy wendy and glam in your pics. Miss you xxxx