China day 4: Guilin and PingAn.

Submitted by maria on Wed, 02/09/2009 - 19:50

We get up early, see a woman with a live duck in a bag, looks like she just bought it at the market.

We go to the bus station to catch a bus to PingAn village in Longshen County to see the rice terraces of the famous Dragon Column.

Yao woman

Nobody speaks English only Chinese, thank goodness we have the destinations written down in Chinese letters and there are several buses daily to almost every destination.

Ping An

Suddenly we are literally thrown off the bus in the middle of nowhere. Luckily they had called another bus to take us to Ping An.

You have to pay a fee to enter the rice field area where the Zhuang and Yao ethnic groups live together. The women of the latter are characterized by their very long hair. The area is spectacular, mountains, rice fields and an intense green.

Ping An

In the village of Ping An, some old women want to carry our backpacks but we are afraid. The village is beautiful. Believe it or not, the pollution reaches this paradise.

Ping An

We enjoy its people, its customs and the landscape. We visited the rice fields. You don't need a guide but at any moment someone appears who wants to explain the history to you in exchange for some coins.

Ping An

We meet Sabrina, a very nice Swiss girl who spends the day with us. Our accommodations are amazing, all wooden and overlooking a ravine and the rice terraces. Impressive colouring of the drying spices.

Rice terrace Ping An

Grave

Rice terrace Ping An

In the shared bathroom a spider as big as the tile walks around, we tell the owner to kill it but she says it eats the mosquitoes. In the end, after trying to kill it with a mocho without success, another guest of Chinese origin finishes with it with a flip-flop, see to believe.