Longsheng: Land of Rice Terraces
Trip Start
May 24, 2008
1
8
14
Trip End
Aug 11, 2008
Longsheng, China, China
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The interesting part of this expedition was that we thought a car was going to pick us up from the train station in Guilin and take us right to the hotel near Longsheng. Well...the car did pick us up, but didn't exactly take us to the hotel because it was at the top of a small mountain. So, it was pouring down rain all day, and finally we arrived at the bottom of a mountain around 8pm when it's already dark and the driver says we're here. We couldn't really see anything. Then we went to some building where we met a woman that works at the hotel and she tells us we need to hike up the mountain in the rain and in the dark for about 45 minutes. We are already exhausted and hungry, but what choice do we have?
There is another little issue with my suitcase at this point, but eventually we sort out that I will just take a day's worth of clothes with me up the mountain and leave most of my suitcase at the bottom of the mountain in some restaurant/home/store/all of the above.
Once that's sorted out we start hiking. It's pretty hard to hike in the rain with only flashlights to light the path. It was slippery. It was also a little dis-comforting that when I swung the flashlight to the left, where the edge of the stairs were, I noticed that the stairs just dropped off...so since I couldn't really tell if it was a long drop, I stayed nice and close to the right side of the stairs on the way up.
Eventually, we made it to our hotel. It wasn't the best I've stayed in, but not the worst either. The bathroom was a little odd. It had a sink, but whatever went in the sink just went straight onto the floor, so I kept getting my feet wet that way because I would forget that the sink would drain like that. There was a drain on the floor for the shower (bathtubs aren't typical in China. Showering in the middle of the bathroom and soaking the floor is typical, apparently. Usually there's no shower curtain when this is the case).
The next morning we could finally see what was surrounding the hotel. It was basically rice terraces as far as we could see! The air was SO clear there. Since it was raining, we decided to stay an extra night and just relax, instead of going back down the mountain right away in the rain. Eventually, we put on our ponchos and took our umbrellas and cameras out to explore the area. The amount of work that must have gone into creating those terraces is incredible.
That night we met an Australian named Ingrid who apparently loves cats. She was fun to talk with at dinner, and we ended up hiking back down the mountain with her the next day.
