Dragon's Backbone

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Hello everybody.

So after 8 years of wanting to, we finally got to see the Longji Rice Terraces. We had originally planned on visiting in 2011, we even bought tickets, but life took a certain unexpected twist and instead of a holiday we got Liam. Liam's a better option.

But, after all that time, today we took the trip out there and it wasn't disappointing. This whole area is so nice. I think everything gets lumped in as being a part of Guilin but Guilin as a city is pretty unremarkable from all accounts I've heard of it, although it seems like it's probably a pretty good base to check out some of the areas around about. We drove past it today on the way out to the terraces, it took about 2 hours each way, through some pretty breathtaking scenery, the karst mountains we've gotten used to through Yangshuo eventually give way to more traditional looking mountains, impressive in their own right and a standout if we hadn't just left Yangshuo! And after complaining about no wilderness last night, the drive from Guilin through to Longsheng was all wilderness, with wild bamboo towering above us and ferns and other plants growing the higher we got up the mountain. On the drive our driver, same guy as last night, pointed out some of the crops that were growing, mostly rice particularly as we got closer to the mountains, but also passionfruit and another fruit we don't get here and a bunch of tangerine orchards too. Stalls selling whatever is grown litter the roadsides all the way up too.

First stop was a traditional village called Yao Village, home to an ethnic minority whose women grow their hair to ridiculous lengths. I read about it when I get home, they get a haircut when they turn 16, then they're ready to get married, and after that they never cut it again. They wash it traditionally in some sort of fermented concoction too that is on sale in every little stall through the village, and it supposedly keeps their hair from turning grey. Seems to do something, they all had jet black hair!

After that was another 20 minute drive a bit further up the mountain to the start of the trail to get the lookouts for the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. So these were dug out hundreds of years ago by the community that lived up there to make use of the mountains to grow their rice and other crops, and it's really, really impressive, the terraces are cut out of the mountains right the way around and irrigated with the mountain water and particularly when the fields are white they are supposed to look like a dragon's backbone. I think that takes a bit of imagination but if you squint enough you can probably see it.

There are a few different villages you can visit to see the terraces, one of them has a cable car that you can take up to see the view, although the hotel people here said the view wasn't quite as good and it was also pretty expensive, so instead we got driven out to Ping'an. While cheaper, it does involve a LOT of walking, a couple of minutes in I wondered if maybe we'd made a bad decision, but after I got into the swing of it I felt a bit better. It was a properly hot day today too so that didn't help, but there's a lot of people selling snacks and water on the way so it's not too arduous. The one major concern we had with going to Ping'an was how the kids would take it, I had this horrible idea that we'd get 5 steps up and end up carrying Ivy and that wouldn't be great. Turns out, there's a bunch of guys with bamboo carriages that they carry on their shoulders who offered to carry the kids for us - for a price of course - but it wasn't too expensive and in the end it was definitely worth it, we wouldn't have gotten to see any of the things we saw without them helping out. And the kids thought it was the best thing in the world. Everybody that walked by them said something to them about how they were like little emperors travelling in absolute luxury, and Liam would just stick his hand out to wave (exactly like the queen does), and lower himself to say hello to the common people. It was genuinely hilarious.

There's two lookouts that we saw, and we fluked seeing them in the right order, the first was awesome but the second peak was mind-blowing. Hopefully the pictures give some sort of idea of how impressive it was. Each of them have little refreshment stalls and places to sit so we stayed for maybe an hour at each of the lookouts taking in the views and as many photos as we could, and then at the second stop the girls spent a bit of time looking at things being sold by an old lady there that were 'authentic' and 'hand stitched by me', despite being produced from sealed plastic bags that had clearly just arrived from the factory. Anyway, not to worry, they were cheap.

I feel like there should be more to write, but that's essentially it, I don't think anything super amazing happened, the walk back was a bit more difficult as the kids were walking by then, but they weren't too bad. When we got back to the very bottom of the mountain, the two guys that were carrying the kids were coming up with a few other guys with some new passengers, this time the people were not small children, but rather some ladies who were on the wrong side of large, and the strain was pretty clear on their faces. Poor guys.

I think that's about it. For your interest, Liam has been playing a game of boys vs girls, where you get a point for getting to the top of a flight of stairs, an escalator, or if you're first out of a lift. The rules are in a pretty constant state of flux, where if it's advantageous for the boys, new rules are added, and often new rules are ignored if it results in the girls getting a point. The score is in a fairly constant state of flux too. Currently, boys are on 426, girls are on 44. The game has resulted in some fairly serious competition at times and has had to be suspended occasionally.

Sorry about the captions on the pictures, I lost interest.

OK, that's definitely it, see ya!

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Comments

[Mum/nanna]

Long haired lady
I want some of that magic shampoo!

[Nanna]

Fresh passionfruit
Hey Liam, was the passionfruit yummy? Did daddy hog them all? I know he likes passionfruit.

[Mum/nanna]

Lord and lady hunter
What a fantastic idea! It would be worth it, no matter the cost