Longji (16-18MAY)

Village of Ping'an, perched on the side of the terraced hillside. This was the second village we stayed in, after a day hike across the Longji Rice Terraces, and the sky had cleared just as we arrived, to give us a spectacular veiw of the valley. Small village where we stopped for a break during our day hike across the terraces. View of the valley partially cloaked in cloulds during our trek.

Serenading my new 'wife' during a traditional courting ceremony at the end of a presentation of folk song and dance.

Shops at the base of the village of Dazhaijust, at the beginning of our hike to our hotel, after eight hours on three different buses. Our hotel was on the ridgeline disappearing in the clouds in the background of the photo.

From Yangshuo we returned to Guilin, the hub of karst tourism, and then on to Longji. The weather was gloomy and gray, with rain showers and fog as we climbed into the mountains, but the lush landscape suggested that the rainy weather is common place. After our second bus journey of the day, we stopped at a small rest stop where we met our first group of women from the local Yao Tribe, which is famous for having the longest hair in the world. I would also contend that they are famous for their efforts to separate tourists from their Yuan. They were on us immediately, peddling all the local wares and post cards, and did not give up until we were pulling away in our final bus, where their last efforts to close a deal through the windows of the bus went un-rewarded. 

Our final bus ride brought us up a narrow, windy road without guardrails and sometimes only one lane for the bus traffic traveling at high speeds in both directions. The ride was a bit nerve racking for some, and we were all relieved when the bus pulled into a parking lot at the base of the village, which sprawled up the hillside into the low clouds. 

After about eight hours in three buses, we were more than happy to get out and hike the last few kilometers, even if it was trying to rain. Once we were off the bus, we almost had to wonder if the peddlers from the last stop had tailed us up the mountain, because their twin sisters where now trying to convince us that we would be better off paying them to carry our bags up the hill to our hotel, than carrying the bags ourselves. 

The importance of tourism in these areas was evident with the peddling, but became even clearer when we had to go through a ticket booth turnstile, like entering an amusement park, to get into the village. Since this was all part of my tour, I did not note the ‘price of admission’ for the village. After a short but steep hike up the terraced valley, we arrived at our hotel, which our guide had downplayed to be a spider-ridden dump. 

This was actually quite typical of Chinese culture and was a theme in our guides’ presentation of the trip throughout the journey. They tended to accentuate the negatives to allow guests to be pleasantly surprised, and/or disagree with compliments. Of course, due to the cultural differences, we were left needlessly dreading several stops along the trip, which actually turned out to be great experiences. 

The hotel was a warm timber structure with a large common area/dining area on the ground floor and rooms on the second and third levels. After getting settled in, we re-grouped for a dinner followed by a cultural show of local folk songs and dance. 

The women who put on the show, were part of the Yao tribe, like all the peddlers we had met on the way into the village, and began the show by bring out all the souvenirs they had to sale. The show did not begin until we had all had an opportunity to buy something, but it was an enjoyable show when it finally got underway. 

To close, the group of ladies performed a courting ceremony. The youngest woman in the group was blindfolded and placed in the middle of the room and the rest of the women joined the audience in a ring around the young woman. The bride to be, in the middle of the ring, was now supposed to select a groom from the ring of people circling her. This could prove challenging, since there were only three guys in the circle of about 20 people. So, when two of the woman’s cohorts slipped into the group on each side of me, I thought there was a pretty good chance I would end up the groom. 

 As suspected, she selected me as the groom, and we began a series of courting ceremonies to seal our ‘marriage.’ First we stood back to back and passed each other wedding gifts. Before the cultural show, I had purchased a small pouch to carry my ipod, which was the only thing I had to give as a gift. I bought a Snickers candy bar to put inside and passed it to my new wife. It turned out she had picked a similar pouch to give me, but since she didn’t have a Snickers bar, she gave me a pinch on the butt, when she handed me the gift. 

Next, we hooked arms and drank a shot of rice wine. I assume the wine was used to lubricate our larynx, since the final ceremony was to serenade one another with a love song. I went first, and sang ‘You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling.’ I suppose it was a little early in our relationship for us to have lost the loving feeling, but it was the first song that came to mind. 

She then sang me a traditional love song, which I later learned went something like: I don’t care how you look, as long as you love me. So, maybe the relationship wasn’t starting on the best terms. In hindsight, I should have then took her by the arm and headed upstairs to see how the group would have reacted. 

Instead, we capped the evening’s cultural exchange by teaching the women the ‘Hooky Pokey,’ which everyone had fun doing. In the morning, we awoke to more rain, and our guide gave us the option of skipping the trek across the terraces ridgeline by taking a bus instead. However, after the wild ride up the mountain in the bus the day before, and the incredible rice terraces stretched out before us, we chose to hike it. 

Fortunately, the rain let up shortly after we began the trek, and by the end, the sun was even breaking through the clouds. The trek was well worth it, and gave us a taste of the grand scale of the terraced mountain. The terraces cover over 60 square kilometers and the ridgeline is terraced from the river in the valley below, at an elevation of 350 meters, up to an elevation of 850 meters. 

With the wet weather, we rarely got a glimpse across the valley, but by the time we made it to Ping’an, the second village we stayed in, the clouds and fog had cleared enough to give us an incredible view of a fraction of the terraced valley stretched out before us. Sadly, several people in the group left the rice terraces with food poisoning, so our long trip to Hong Kong was going to feel even longer for some.