The flight was late landing because
we were sat on the plane for two hours waiting for it to take off. We were
worried that our guide meeting us at Guilin
airport would be annoyed or would tell us we don’t have enough time to do what
we planned. However, as soon as we arrived at the airport, a happy little woman
approached us. Our guide was called Lily and she was lovely and full of energy.
We drove for two hours to a
little row of huts in a car park. We were told to leave our suitcases there
unless we wanted to pay 50RMB to each local woman to carry each suitcase up the
mountain. I was a little anxious because these huts weren’t exactly surrounded
by security. However, we were told the men who owned the hut were there all the
time and even slept there at night.
So we got back in the van and
drove another forty minutes further up a mountain. We arrived at a little car
park that was empty when we arrived. A group of village women ran to our van
and peered into the windows to see if we had luggage. Their faces were
disappointed when they saw that we didn’t and then hurried off to another
approaching van to see if they had any luggage.
We walked up more of a mountain
for another twenty minutes. This village really was not the easiest place to get to! Lily told us that the villagers only recently had a road made near their village! Before the Government was persuaded to make it, it took the villagers hours and hours to travel up and down the mountains.
We walked past many stalls that were selling
crafts. We were told by nearly every shop owner that these items for sale were
handmade. Many were. However others were not. Later in the week we went to
Yangshuo town and I saw many of the same items for sale there! (How peculiar!)
Once again, I realised I wasn’t
as fit as I once was! (Too much Chinese food!) We saw the following day that it is possible to sit in a chair and be carried up the mountain! Who wants to miss the experience of huffing and puffing up and down a mountain on a hot day though right?? Those people are missing out!! The little old women literally carry your suitcases in wooden baskets on their backs!! Poor women!!
Once we reached the village we went to see our hotel. I
was so impressed by my dad’s hotel bookings! We had gone from an extravagant
hotel in Beijing and a greatly impressive
apartment in Shanghai
to a very simple and traditional wooden home up in the mountains. Even though
it was basic, it was still very comfortable and perfectly fine!
We went to another hotel to eat
in the evening. After we finished eating, Lily came over and was amazed at how
much we had ordered to eat. (We had ordered nine dishes between the four of
us). To be fair, we were hungry and ate most of it. We made a family decision
however that we should stop ordering rice because it just fills us up! Lily was
also shocked at how much we had spent. (We spent probably around the equivalent
of £25. (This included some beer). This was apparently an expensive meal!
There were no lights in the
village at night and so we had to use torches on our phones to find our way
back to our hotel. We were nervous about the weather. It had been raining the
day we arrived and there was mist. There was supposed to be more rain and mist
to come. The following day we wanted to go on a five hour hike but this did not
look promising. We didn’t want to walk for hours if we weren’t going to see any
of the views. We decided to wait until morning to make the final decision about
what to do. Lily said, up in the mountains, no one can predict the weather.
It was so peaceful and quiet and
my sister and I were about to fall asleep in the peacefulness of the night when
suddenly…..music was heard in the distance. This was then followed by a lot of yelling
(I assume drinking games were in full swing). I found this so funny! I thought
this would be a quiet village in the mountains. It was…but it was also a
backpacking area and therefore, backpackers need some entertainment at night!
I was asleep before I could even
consider going to investigate what was going on!
The next day we were up bright
and early, praying for some good weather. We decided to go on a shorter trek.
It would only take two or three hours. Instead of hiking to another village, we
decided to trek around the same village in one big circle.
So off we went. We walked past
more handmade (or not) stalls and a place to dress up in traditional costumes
for the equivalent of £1. There were many, many tourists in this part. For some
reason though, all the tourists stopped at a certain point. Lily said it was
perhaps due to the fact that they had no time because they were group tours. We
continued onwards and found that before long, we were the only ones walking in
the forests and mountains.
I therefore advise, if ever you
visit the Ping An Rice Terraces, to keep walking as far away from the tourists
as possible! Also, it is far better to go to places like this with a personal
tour guide rather than as a tour group!
We were so lucky! The weather, as
though by magic, just cleared up before our very eyes!
The views are spectacular! It
must be so beautiful when it snows and when the greenery blooms during Spring
time! The rice fields on the Dragon Backbone Terraces rise up to 1000 metres
high. It’s so hard to work out how they have built them up the hillsides and
that they are scattered everywhere among the minority villages!
We walked past a native woman
from a neighbouring village who walks for hours to sell things to tourists. She
offered to show us her hair for 10RMB, (£1). We were intrigued and so we gave
her the money. These women are literally living Rapunzels!
This old woman unwrapped her hair
from the top of her head and it fell down to the ground. She pulled away two
separate parts of hair that had been cut when she was younger.
This woman was a Yao minority from a neighbouring village. The
people in the Ping An village (where we stayed for a night) were of the Zhuang
minority.
There are around 55 ethnic
minorities living in China .
Lily was of the Zhuang minority.
From now on, I call myself a
minority within the UK .
That’s how I now describe myself to the Chinese!!!
The houses in the village were
unique wooden houses built up the mountainsides. There was a lot of building
going on (as there is in every other part of China )! Lily said that it was a
shame because gradually, the traditional wooden homes were turning into cement!
There was one specific wooden house over a hundred years old! (The smaller one in the picture!)
People work so hard in the rice
fields! They continue working until they are very old! I’m sure we saw people
in their eighties or nineties still working hard in the fields and the village!!
We passed many women on the
roadside cooking a speciality…a rice meal barbecued inside bamboo sticks. We
wanted to try some but I did wonder how we’d eat them!
This was such a great experience!
It was amazing to see a really traditional area of China and it was refreshing to see
such basic living without mobile phones everywhere!
However, I can't help but worry that tourism will destroy the area! It's so beautiful. There are already too many tourists!!
My next blog post will be on Yangshuo...
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