We had a long
journey up to the famous dragon's backbone rice terraces today.
Construction of the terraces, which have been carved out of the
contours of Longji (the Dragon's Backbone) mountain, began during the
13th century and continued until the early 20th
century. Today, they present an awesome spectacle, curved,
water-filled steps that cover every available space of the steep
hillsides.
We were up with the
alarm at 4.30am and then downstairs for our 5am taxi to the bus
station. A light rain was falling as we climbed aboard the coach to
Guilin, which eventually left just before 5.30am with just us and the
driver on board. It wasn't long before we were stopping to pick up
more passengers, and soon the bus was almost half full and hurtling
along through torrential rain.
When we arrived in
Guilin, the conductor told us where to get off for the train station,
where we were due to catch a minibus to the rice terraces.
Thankfully, a few of the passengers who got off with us were also
going there because it was still quite a long walk and it wasn't
clear where we needed to go. At the station, we found a quiet spot
near the entrance and dumped our bags to wait for the van. In the
meantime, Zoe and I went looking for some juice to have with our
crackers for breakfast. Our search took us to a little restaurant
that did the traditional rice noodle breakfast, so I grabbed one of
those as well.
When the van
arrived, we hopped board and headed north. Much to my embarrassment,
I hadn't been keeping a proper eye on our cash levels, and when I
added up everything we still had to pay, I realised that we didn't
have enough to cover it - and I was pretty certain that there weren't
going to be any ATMs where we were going. After a while, the driver
pulled off the main road into a small, chaotic town so he could run a
few errands, taking the van slowly through the narrow main street and
shouting out his requests to the shop owners. We asked him if he knew
of any ATMs nearby, but he didn't seem to understand. I soon spotted
one, however, and asked him to stop, which he duly did. I hopped out
of the van and ran over, but of course, this was one of the many ATMs
in China that refused to hand over any money to me, so I grabbed my
card and ran back to the van. Which wasn't there any more. I ran up
each of the nearby streets to check whether had moved to find a
better place to park, but there was no sign of them anywhere, so I
just settled down to wait for them, getting progressively damper in
the light rain that was falling. Sure enough, after about five or ten
minutes they came back down the street we had take earlier and
stopped so I climb back in (the driver had still had some errands to
run).
A bit further up the
road, we came to the ticket office for the rice terrace area. The
Chinese aren't shy about charging tourists to do anything
tourism-worthy – any hill worth climbing or village worth visiting
will usually have a ticket office nearby charging an entrance fee. As
we pulled up, a woman from the office came out to the van and asked
us for the 100 yuan per person fee. I enquired about paying by credit
card but she was pretty sceptical that they accepted Visa. This
seemed ludicrous to me, so I took her back to the office to prove her
wrong. But of course she was right – they only accepted a local
card, and I had to fork out the cash from our meagre supply.
We were getting into
much hillier, heavily forested country now, and the narrow, twisty
road took us up into the mist along a steep-sided valley beside a
very pretty but rather wild river, waterfalls tumbling into it at
regular intervals, swelling its already turbulent flow. The van
eventually dropped us at the car park at the entrance to the 'scenic
area'. It was raining quite heavily now, and we finally broke out the
fetching yellow plastic ponchos that we had bought in Huangshan,
struggling to get into them in the cramped confines of the van.
Outside, we had attracted a small crowd of local Yao ethnic minority
women, all with matching hairstyles that features a twist at the
front (apparently they have the longest hair in the world) and wicker
baskets on their backs – porters keen to carry our loads up to our
accommodation, which was a 40-minute walk away up some very steep
paths. Of course, we didn't have enough money to pay them even if we
had wanted to employ them and a few of them seemed to be quite cross
with us when we shouldered our packs and headed off. (I'm not sure I
could have done it anyway – there's something a bit weird about an
elderly woman carrying your bags for you up a steep hill, no matter
how much they've done it before and regardless of the fact that it's
the way that they make their living. And just for the record, I would
feel the same way if it was an elderly man.)
Our hostel had
thoughtfully provided us with a map, complete with a series of photos
taken at the critical junctions, and we made good, steady progress up
through Dazhai village and into the rice terraces. The rain eased off
a little as we walked, but the temperature didn't and we were soon
sweat-drenched. We were, however, very grateful that we had left most
of our stuff in Guilin, as it meant that I was the only one who was
heavily laden.
After about 45
minutes or so, we reached the hotel, checked in and got the news we
had been praying for all the way up the mountain – yes, they did
take Visa, so our cash reserves would be sufficient to get us back to
another ATM. We dumped our bags in our basic room, which had a great
view out over the terraces and went downstairs for some lunch. Then
we walked out and up to the nearby-ish lookout. Luckily, the rain had
stopped by now and we got a great view over the terraces, where the
farmers were again hard at work planting rice seedlings. Because of
the angle of the sun, the water in the paddies reflected the
sunlight, turning them into mirrors. It wasn't long before we saw
more rain approaching, however, and rather than get caught in it, we
headed back down for showers and dinner and then put a mosquito net
up over the girls' bed as we had seen a few flying around the room
and we're a little bit paranoid about Japanese encephalitis, because
we couldn't afford to get the jabs.
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