After a few relaxing days at Yangshuo, we tore ourselves away and headed back to Guilin to get our train tickets for Guanzhou a couple of days in advance and to continue north a little to the Dragon Backbone Rice Terrace.

The Longji (or Dragon’s Backbone) terrace comprises a vast region of rice terraces stretching layer upon layer, and is said to be the most amazing terrace in China. Construction of the terraces began in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), and continued until the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

We didn’t really know where we wanted to go as there are a few little villages in the area, but coming off one of the buses, we met a guy who had a hotel in Dazhai so for simplicity’s sake we just went with him and it turned out to be a good choice.

The village was really small, and all the houses made of wood. This was the view from our hotel room:

Fixing the roof:

Before dinner we went for a little walk to explore the rice paddies…

Past little covered bridges…

View of Dazhai from our climb up to viewpoint 3:

The irrigation system was actually quite impressive - The terraces cover an area of 66 square kilometers and the altitude ranges from 300 meters to 1100 meters (and it’s a steep climb!). Even though the area is large, it’s made up of many small patches, all connected by little streams bringing water in and letting it flow down to the next.

The next day, after a too-expensive breakfast of noodles at the hotel we set off…up, up up. The plan was to visit viewpoint 1 and 2 (we visited 3 the previous evening), the continue on the 14 kilometres to the village of Ping’An. It was pretty hot, so I need my sun hat like the locals:

More nice views:

Roland enjoying a coke and the view, waiting for the sun to come out:

On the path to Ping’An, winding around the terraces:

We saw lots of people working in the fields, transplanting the rice…

Spreading fertilizer…

Spraying pesticides…

On the walk we passed through several small villages…

With lots of dogs (they were good looking around here), and chickens…

After seven hours of walking we were happy to arrive in Ping’An:

Ping’An had a lot more hotel options, so we wandered around til we found a place that looked good and after some negociation and an agreement that the A/C remote would be removed, we got a nice double room for 60 yuan.

All seemed very quiet as we sat on the terrace outside the hotel, enjoying a well deserved beer and watching the people go by (as well as the horse lugging bricks up the hill), when all of a sudden we were descended upon by dozens of Chinese tourists and their porters. Most just had their bags carried up the 20 minute climb, but some decided to be carried themselves!

It would be fair to say, I think, that while poorer Chinese people seem to work themselves to the bone even to a ripe old age (the porters who wanted to carry our bags all looked about 60-75), the middle class have a distinct aversion to anything that might make you sweat. Hence all the porters and cable cars and paved roads that lead to any nice site in China.

In the end, however, this group turned out to be really friendly and after dinner we chatted with them for a while and they gave us some kind of sweet rice wine. As usual here, they all seemed impressed with the fact that Roland is French, and after a few of their “France good, Sarkozy bad” cheers, then “Canada good, Martin bad” (hey, maybe a little behind but I was impressed that someone knew a Canadian politician, even if it was to complain about their stance on human rights in China, though the subject was never really expanded on) we moved on to a little singing and dancing. You can have a look at this little video to see Kathyrn, the dancing queen:

After all the excitement we headed outside to take some night photos with our fancy new 3 euro tripod!

The next morning, Roland prepares his nasty medicinal tea:

All the porters waiting for the next busload to arrive:

We caught the bus back to Guilin, and after a few hours in a hot internet cafe, looking up info for our next destination, Guanzhou (Canton), we actually decided to give it a miss and go straight on to Hong Kong!