Apr 28, Tuesday, Longji Rice Terraces

We had heavy haze in Guilin in the morning but it seemed to be clearing as we left the city.   The city traffic was, as usual, a heavy and a bit crazy with lots of motorcycles and  street side vendors.

When the traffic gets too heavy going one way cars will just move over into a lane going the other way.  

On the way to the Longji Rice Terraces the heavens opened and dumped huge quantities of water.  However, by mid-morning the  rains had stopped and the sun kept peeking through the clouds.  The drive to the mountains was beautiful.

The restaurant we ate lunch at served a regional specialty...a pork and rice stuffed stick of bamboo.  

By the time we arrived at the Longji Rice Terraces the weather was fine.  We took a cable car up the side of the mountain and over the rice terraces.  

These rice terraces were built over 800 years ago.  The mountains are steep (some at a 50 degree angle) and some of the terraces are only a couple of feet from front to back.  And there appeared to be thousands of them. It was a couple weeks too early for there to be water in the rice terraces but it was beautiful nonetheless. Was really hard to pick out the best pictures.

After getting to the top and taking lots of pictures the guide pointed out our hotel for the night across the valley.  That's our hotel near the top of the hill across the valley.  A loooong ways away.

  
Unfortunately, the only way to get there was to walk with our backpacks in what, for us, would be two and a half hours (plus) up and down the stairs.  There is no road to it, only a small rocky path with no public transportation or the stairs.  

After about 15 minutes the guide stopped to talk to a local who told him about a much “shorter” route…so it was back up the mountain to find a local guide.  

The route was probably shorter and certainly had fewer stairs as it ran approximately straight across mountains to the hotel.  However, it was definitely a path used only by the locals.  Most of it was packed dirt that was wet from the rains so it was a bit slippery and occasionally muddy.  

Our alternate local "path" to the hotel.

The entire process was especially annoying as we had not been told about the long hike to the hotel on either the original itinerary or by the guide.  The guide had only said to pack a backpack for the night.  Since we didn’t know about the hike we had both ended up over packing and the packs were pretty heavy.  Fortunately the local guide had one of the big baskets they use to carry just about everything so he took one of the backpacks and our main guide, Dave took the other.

However, once we got to the hotel we were both glad to have an extra change of clothes as it is rather humid here and both of us had very wet (sweaty) clothes after the long hike.  During the hike we weren’t sure that we would have agreed to this hotel had we known in advance about the hike.  However, after arriving here we may have been too hasty.  The site of the hotel probably has the most beautiful views out over the valley.  And our room has nearly floor to ceiling windows facing the valley.  Pretty spectacular.

View from our window.

More photos of the Longji Terraces.

At dinner a young Chinese woman from Xi’an came to our table and asked if she could visit with us, likely wanting to practice her English.  Her English was good and we had a lovely visit.