Day 5
I learned
by mistake, that Longji rice terrace area consists of multiple different
villages and the main villages Ping’an and Dazhai are really far from each
other (and have completely different bus connections too). Why learned by
mistake? By booking a bus to Longji rice terraces, without paying attention
that it’s going to Dazhai, and booking a hostel in Ping’an. Luckily I noticed it
in the morning before leaving, so was able to cancel the booking with no cost. So after a very bumpy ride
and even I was starting to get a bit car sick (I never do). The last about 45 min was very narrow and curvy road with mountain wall on the other side and big drop to
the river on the other. On top of that, the heavy rains had caused several
landfalls, either piling sand on the road or collapsing part of the road
to the river, making it even narrower. And of course there was lot of busses
and trucks driving both ways. So after multiple “close calls” we finally
reached Dazhai.
I got super
lucky with the weather: it had been raining for weeks before and was going to
rain again from Saturday on, but the 2 days I was there were just sunshine. I was
the first one to arrive to my 4-bed (2 bunk bed) dorm and got to choose my
favorite one. The owner asked if I want to do the hike with one of my
Chinese roommates who just arrived, which is always a bit uncomfortable
situation, since I know that my idea of hiking is completely different form the Chinese
one (wearing nice clothes, like dresses, and shoes (often even high heels) and
only walking some nice concrete/stone roads. But in the other hand I don't want to be rude and say no. Luckily she decided not to go with
me as I wanted to leave quite soon and for her it was too hot. (Later I met the same girl on top of the hill wearing exactly the fancy clother and complaining how hard the 30 min climb was 😆)
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| Here I go! The peak nr 3 is the one on the top right and nr 1 was about the same hight on the left. |
From Dazhai
you can easily hike to 3 different peaks and they are actually numbered as
1, 2 and 3. I decided to do 1 and 3, while the guesthouse owner named 3 as the
best spot for sunset and 2 for sunrise. He also said that the existing path to
make a round trip from 1 to 3 was “only walked by about 10 people every year”
and can be muddy. Taken the Chinese concept of hiking, I still decided to do
that, cause walking back the same route would be boring.
The hike
from Dazhai to 1st peak started with 100 m of flat ground, followed
by 2-3 km of basically only stairs. Sometimes steeper, sometimes a bit easier,
and once even down (for about 50 m). In this kind of landscape you learn to
hate downhills, while it always means climbing the same altitude again :D
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| This is what hiking in China mostly looks like: stairs, stairs and more stairs 😅 |
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| My hiking buddy from a local house <3 |
After about
20 min of climbing I got the first glimpse of the views: rice terraces
everywhere. It was also great to see the villagers working, and how everything
is completely manually done. Huge respect especially for the tiny women doing
physically really hard work from dusk to dawn! I passed some villages on my way
and even got a dog to accompany me for almost an hour. He just came from a yard
and showed me the way. After about 1,5 hours I reached the first viewpoint and continued another 10
– 15 min to reach the actual peak with a viewpoint called Music froom Paradise. The views in the whole
area were so amazing, that I couldn’t help repeating the “wow” in my head.
Easily one of the most amazing places I have ever visited. And no other tourists.
The hike from 1st to 3rd peak definitely wasn’t in good shape and I did consider turning around. Mostly because the plants by the path had grown so much that it was sometimes hard to walk. But some parts were also quite okay, so decided to continua (cause I simply can’t give up). The path was in a thick forest, with no special views, but crossing some beautiful mountain rivers was cool, and the bamboo forests on the second half where cool. Sometimes the path crossed the rice plantations and close to the peak I had to take a little extra round thanks to construction work close to tourist cable car. It was funny to arrive to 3rd peak viewpoint sweaty, muddy and sheens filled with not-so-pretty scratches, while most of the others there came up by cable car with their fancy clothes. After the sunset I still had to walk down for about 25 min, so in total I hiked about 6 hours and 8 – 9 kilometres.
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| Glimpse of the views from 3rd peak. All the work is manually done. Huge respect to those men and women working from dusk til dawn! |
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After
shower and dinner I was dead tired, but as everyone in my room was lying on
their beds, I asked if I can turn off the lights. The 3 Chinese girls where
super surprised that I wanted to sleep already (at 22:30). After a while, I
finally got the darkness and fell asleep immediately.
Day 2:
Hiking from Dazhai to Ping’an and hitchhiking back
I had red
from blogs that the sunrise is the most amazing thing to see in Longji, so
decided to weak up early to see it from 2nd peak. Me and my Austrian
friend left guesthouse at 4:30 am and started climbing the 1,5 km with flash
lights in pitch black. I was glad she was with me cause it would’ve been a bit
scary alone. We reached the top in 30 minutes and were the only ones there to
witness the sunrise. I had thought it would be very crowded, but the first ones
arrived when the sun was already far above the horizon. The most magical moment
was when the sun just peaked from behind the mountains and all the rice
plantations looked like a sea of mirrors reflecting the colors of the sky. No
photo can do justice to the real beauty of the whole scenery.
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| Around 5am |
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| 50 shades of sunrise |
We ate some
breakfast by the viewpoint: noodle soup and local tea, so very local style.
After the breakfast we headed to our own directions and for me it was the
second main location of rice terrace area: Ping’an, which was about 8 km from
the viewpoint. I was positively surprised that only part of the hike consisted
of stairs and most was like a normal path (still quite hilly landscape). Since
websites mentioned, that this is like the most popular hike in the area, I was
a bit afraid to end up in the middle of loud Chinese tourists. In the end I
didn’t see ANY other hikers throughout the whole hike. It might be possible,
that starting at 7:30 am has something to do with it, but it’s so hot on the
early afternoon, that not too many people would do it later.
The
pictures will show more about the amazing views and how the path looked like:
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| On right: the main street of Ping'an, this is how developed the villages here are |
On the way
amazing locals helped me with sign language to take another route, since the
original path had collapsed with landfalls due to heavy rains. Even some parts
of the roads were half blocked with sand from landfalls. I arrived to “Nine
dragons and five tigers” viewpoint at 10:30, so it took me only 3 hours (plus
30 min from village to the viewpoint). It was good to be finished before the
hottest moment, but still it got really warm and humid right away when the sun
got up (way before 7 am).
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| Views from Nine dragons and five tigers |
I chilled
there for a while and then walked another 20 min down the stairs to Ping’an
village. It was said to be more touristic than Dazhai, but was still a tiny
village with not too many services. Therefore I decided to head back to Dazhai.
There are no direct busses between Ping’an and Dazhai, and the only option
would be to take bus from Ping’an to The Bridge (17 km) and then a bus from
there to Dazhai. I was walking towards the parking lot when 2 Chinese signaled
me to come with them and said they can take me down. They understood a bit
wrong and only took me to the spot where the bus leaves, and the next one was
going to be in 1,5 h. I asked the guards (with Google translator) how to get
down, but they only answered in Chinese. They often don’t know how to type
without the signs, so translator apps don’t really help to understand them.
Some have a voice recognition translator, which is quite handy.
Anyways,
instead of waiting there, I asked the next car to take me down to the bridge.
Driver signaled me to jump in and the family dropped me off at the bridge,
where I figured the best spot to wait for a bus (there are no schedules or
official stops). After couple of tourist busses passing me, the public bus
finally arrived and picked me up to sit there with some fence building
equipment :D It took me less than an hour to get from Ping’an to Dazhai, which
was really good. From my point of view, most of Chinese people are definitely not rude like people think (and what I was told), but often super nice and helpful, especially in more rural areas. And no matter the country, people always tend to be "colder" in bigger cities.
After a
shower, amazing lunch at guesthouse and little nap, it was time to head to the
bus to Guilin. I spent the night just walking around a bit, picking up my train
tickets and going to bed early. Or tried to, but my Chinese dormmate started running around the room and up and down the stairs hysterically. Finally we figured that it was cause there was a guy in our dorm (it was a mixed dorm) 😂 At least we got a really good laugh after we realized everything's okay.
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| Guilin. Left: Sun and moon temples, Right: my favorite restaurants: street food and tasting all kinds of local treats. |
The next
morning it was time to say goodbye to Southern China and ride 10 hours across
the country with high speed train, and end up to Beijing to start the actual
study trip. It was an amazing holiday week, could have used a lot more time in
the south!
Accommodation
in Dazhai: Lost in Beauty Guesthouse
First of
all, the owner of the place is amazing and I could go back anytime just to have
such warm welcome and friendly service. The dorm room itself was a bit tiny,
but bed was quite wide and comfortable. Toilet/bathroom is nothing fancy, but
it was clean and worked (that was more than enough when I returned from a hike
covered with sweat and mud). Super plus for the location: unlike to most of the
places, you don’t have to climb any steps, which made my life a lot easier with
quite heavy luggage. And the price was 28 CNY/night, so definitely more than
worth the money.
The food at
the guesthouse was super delicious, so ate there both days. The local eggplant
was so good that ordered it on both days. Additionally we tried local bamboo
chicken soup, which appeared to be one of those typical Chinese dishes, where
you have like almost all the parts of chicken. Leg was a bit too much for me
(couldn’t eat it) and bones made it a bit difficult to eat, but I still think
it’s important to try the local specialties. You never know which one becomes
your favorite!
Accomodation
in Guilin: Guilin Central Wada Hostel
Nice hostel
with spacious rooms. Only minus was that my room was on 4th floor
with no stairs, but it was doable. I ordered breakfast already in the evening,
and the omelet and coffee did not let me down. Just stayed there overnight.
