Arriving at 11pm in 7 Days Inn, I discovered that the CTS travel booth was still open. I quickly took up the 1 day tour to Longsheng 龙胜 which costed only 150rmb. I had always wanted to visit the famous Longji (Dragon's Backbone) Terraced Rice Fields 龙脊梯田 but worried if it was the right season to do so. The sale assistant at the travel booth claimed that the fields will be filled with water by this time and it would be beautiful. I highly doubted her words but signed up anyway.
The next day, I was picked up at exactly 8am which was a good start. It would take 2.5 hours bus ride to the Ping'an Village. The tour guide collected 50rmb from us for additional tours like a visit to the Yao minority 瑤族 village and more bamboo rafting. The guide was friendly and informative so we don't mind paying the extra. One hour into the trip, the bus started getting cranky. The driver stopped a few time to check the engine but the problem persisted. On the 5th stops, the tourists on the bus were getting frustrated and insisted the guide to send for another bus. After wasting an hour, we were picked up by another tour bus. The bus took us to the bottom of a hill where we need to transit to the local bus that would us uphill to where Ping'an Village is.
At the bottom of the hill, we were greeted with more bad news. There were landslides from heavy rain in the past few of days and some parts of the road were partially blocked. It would take another hour for the traffic to clear before we can board the next bus. While waiting, I befriended 2 ladies who were travelling alone as well. Wei Zhen is from Beijing and she had accompanied her husband who was on a business trip to Guilin. Since her husband was working, she decide to take up the day tour herself. The other lady, Zhao Liang is from Fujian. She was originally travelling with another girlfriend who was suddenly called back to work yesterday and left her travelling alone.
After half an hour of wait, we got onto a bus and started our long bumpy journey uphill. Part of the roads were narrowed by the landslide and vehicles from both directions had to wait in turn to travel on the single lane. At some points, the bus was so close to the edge of the cliff that I had to hold my breath and pray. But we made it to Ping'an Village after all. The weather was good too. The whole village is built along the hill and multiple long and winding stairways leading to the top where the main attraction is. So we started our slow ascend by foot. It took us more that half an hour to reach the restaurant where we had our lunch. The climb was tiring but the scenery of the village on top was priceless. We had bamboo chicken and rice which were delicious. Both the ladies worried about H7N9 and wondered if the local chicken was safe to eat. Since I did not bother watching the news for the past one month in China, I was not aware of the severity of the bird flu outbreak. In fact, I had a great feast of wild chicken 野山鸡 hotpot in Zhangjiajie. Uh-oh now I am getting worried. Need to google on the news later.
After lunch, we needed to climb another one hour to reach the Seven Stars with Moon view point 七星伴月. Once at the view point, the whole of the Longji Terraced Rice Fields was visible to us. Although the fields were not fill with water, but the green contoured landscape took my breath away. I learned that a long time ago, the Yao and Zhuang minorities were forced to move further up the hills as their flat lands were invaded by enemies. In order to survive, they started farming along the hilly slopes and thus creating the view today. Such great scenery accompanied by a sad history.
It took us only 20 minutes to descent the hills to the carpark though. On the bus back, a Chinese lady sitting beside me started to chat with me. She was from Guangzhou and she offered me an orange. This friendly lady told me that she learned from an old Yao villager that although there was a increase of tourists, they did not get a cent from all the profits. We both agreed that the poor villagers deserved something for their hard works put in the rice terraces.
Next up we visited Huangluo Yao Village where we got to see the Long hair women show. A traditional Yao woman only cuts her hair once in their life. As such the ladies had superbly long hair which they kept in a bun. The tour guide told us the secret to their silky black hair is soaking them in a fermented rice water. But the fermented rice water smelled so bad that it had lost its popularity as more Yao ladies needed to work in city. I don't know why but the fermented rice water made me think of Pitera and SKII.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.
We got the cranky tour bus again. The time round, the bus broke down more often. Since it was a down sloped ride, the sudden stops made the ride too dangerously for comfort. There was an uproar as we insisted on changing bus. The guide had a hard time since he cannot procured another bus at this hour. But some of the tourist refused his excuse and insisted he made a call to his boss while we stood by the roadside in protest. After an hour wait, we finally got a bus to take us back to town. It was already 8pm when we reached Guilin city. Since it was late, Zhao Liang missed her bus back and had to stay another night in Guilin. We decided to share a hotel room that night. Her hotel room costed only 80rmb but it was a very old run down hotel so I did not bother remembering the name. Wei Zhen's husband joined us and we had dinner in one of the many restuarants along Xicheng Pedestrian street 西城路步行街. We had 拔丝芋头, a caramelized yam dessert which was delicious.
I had fun today. In a way, the bus broke down much to our frustration. But it also allowed us more time to mingle and chat as we waited on the roadside.a
