Day 14 – “I hear no music.”

Have you heard of the book Outliers?  Anyone read it?  I’ve only read one chapter.  I can’t find it in China.  The chapter that I read is about rice farming in China.  It talks about how labor-intensive rice farming is.  (the chapter also talks about math and how the two are related–something do do with persistence on difficult tasks)  I did not fully understand the magnitude of the rice terraces by reading this chapter.  The chapter does a great job of describing how difficult and time-consuming rice farming is, but I couldn’t reasonably understand this from a book.  I had to see it for myself.  And this is what I saw:

For as far as you can see there are rice terraces. I'm sure it looks much more spectacular during the flood season or during the harvest season. I was here during the dry season and it was still magnificent.

The most amazing part of the terraces was how they were “built.”  They aren’t like easy steps that you can just climb up.  They are incredibly steep.  And there are thousands of them.  The biggest question on my mind was “how in the world do you harvest the rice?” (second to that was ‘how do you flood the terraces?’)  Most of our day was spent hiking around the terraces (and in them–not the growing season) and marveling at this feat of farm engineering.  I included the “houses” in the photo so that you could have a size reference. (also because they were already in the way) 😉 

It was unbelievable and difficult to put into words how incredible it was! Even the pictures don't do it justice.

This was the view from "Music from Paradise". You can see our guesthouse on the far right of the photo. Yes, that is the same sweatshirt you see me wearing in EVERY picture. Don't judge me. One learns to pack very lightly when they are going on a "hiking" vacation. My bag was still too heavy.

One of the most entertaining parts of the terraces were the names that were given to the lookout points. 🙂 “Music from Paradise” had no music, “10,000 Steps to Heaven” (or something similar) and “Golden Buddha Peak”.  None of these accurately described what the view was like.  The best lookout was the Golden Buddha Peak because it was the highest one.  It was amazing at how quickly the time went by.  We made our way back down to Dazhai village (what were we thinking?!?–this meant we had to climb back up) to meet Tom who was joining us that afternoon.  We had been in contact via text messages about his arrival time (and about his adventures in Longsheng 🙂 we told him to insist that he get the bus to Longsheng because Heping was only a street and he might be stranded for an hour)  It turns out that it would have been faster the way we came had we gotten the local bus more quickly.  Good to know for next time. 

We enjoyed lunch in Dazhai village at the bottom of the mountain and perused the village during the afternoon while waiting for Tom.  We spent some time conversing with the locals (conversing = mostly telling them that I didn’t want to buy what they were selling) and trying to bargain the Yao women down from their ridiculously high prices.  I ended up buying some postcards (not from the woman who was relentless–this did not make her happy) Eventually I got her to smile. 🙂

I didn't manage to get her to smile until I was leaving the village. That's probably why she smiled. 🙂

Tom finally arrived (much later than we had planned) and we were on our way back up the mountain.  We didn’t need the cute-laughing-calves of steel-woman this time around.  We knew where we were going.  It’s amazing how much faster the hike goes when you aren’t carrying your HUGE backpack on your back.  I was impressed with Tom.  He put us all to shame.  When we got back to the hostel, we found ourselves in the restaurant again and ordered some beer.  After a little while we ordered some dinner and planned how I would get to Hong Kong.  I had tried to find a train ticket when I first arrived in Guilin but there were no tickets.  I had decided to just try to buy a bus ticket when I came back from the rice terraces.  Tom suggested flying.  I needed to be in Hong Kong on Wednesday for the FOC retreat.  (It was Monday)  This just happened to be the same day that Tom was flying back to Hong Kong and he suggested I try to get a ticket for his flight.  We tried to buy it that night on the mountain.  It didn’t work the first time.  It didn’t work the second time.  I went to bed that night without a plane ticket.  But the bed was warm and comfortable. 🙂

Day 15 – “Oh, Do you want us to book that ticket? Um, yeah.”

I got up early to catch the sunrise but there was too much fog to see anything.  Sad.  I crawled back in my bed for a while until breakfast.  This morning, Aga and Radek were taking the bus back to Guilin so that they could try to get a ticket to their next destination.  We said our goodbyes with the hope of seeing them again that night (if they couldn’t get their bus tickets).  If this happened, we planned to stay in the same hostel in Guilin.  It was also in the morning that I called Ctrip (Chinese flight website) to see if they had received any booking information.  All the woman said was “Oh, do you want us to book that ticket?”  🙁  Nope.  I didn’t.  Good grief.  After that fiasco I had a flight to Hong Kong the following day at 4:00ish.  Perfect. 

I stayed in the terraces with Tom to hike around most of the day.  This is when we climbed to Golden Buddha Peak.  Very Cool!   We had our big packs with us for the entire hike this day because we didn’t want to make it to the bottom only to go back up to get them.  It was pretty brutal but we took our time and enjoyed the views.  I’m still in awe of the engineering that went into the terraces. Amazing!  Most of these terraces were ‘built’ during the Ming Dynasty 500ish years ago.  It is very impressive. 

We eventually made it down to Dazhai village to catch the bus to Guilin via Longsheng.  When we visited with a woman at a hotel in the village she informed us that on this particular day there was a direct bus from Dazhai to Guilin.  Bingo!  The bus was at 4:30 and took 2.5 hours to get there.  Okay.  We got on the bus at about 4:20 and proceeded to wait for over an hour to leave. 🙁  Bu hao.  While we were waiting we questioned the driver of the minibus about the delayed departure.  He told us that we were waiting for two people.  He assumed that these other two people were with the group of three already in the bus because they had come together that morning.  The other three (all German) told us that the other two men had decided to stay on the mountain and wouldn’t be taking the bus with us.  Tom told me to tell this to the driver (because my Chinese is better than his.)  Hmm…. We’ll see what I can do. “Wo men bu xuyao deng biede ren. Tamen yao zhu zai zheli.” 🙂  This is what I came up with. I’m sure it is horrible grammar but I’ll give you a literal translation so that you can also have a laugh (as I’m sure the driver did too–although he understood exactly what I meant.)  It translates to: “We no need wait other people. They want live there.” (and then I pointed to the top of the hill.)  It’s not entirely awkward because a Chinese person will say “live” when they really mean “spend the night.”  I still love the caveman style of Chinese.  🙂

Eventually we made it back to Guilin and to the hostel.  As we were checking in we heard from across the room, “Hello, bamboo!”  This was Aga’s way of saying hello.  They were unable to catch the bus to their next destination and would have to do it the following day.  Lucky for us.  We got to hang out with them another night.

Day 13 – “You can’t get there from here.” Part II

Since I had prolonged my stay in Xingping, it was time for me to head out.  With Aga and Radek along, I took the direct bus to Guilin from Xingping.  (Where was this bus when I was trying to get to Xingping?)  Before we left, Norman gave us very specific instructions on how to get to our next destination.  He was adorable.  He told the bus driver to make sure we got off at the right stop and then wrote the next destination on a piece of paper in characters so that we didn’t have to try to get our meaning across.  Norman told us that we would have to walk about 1 km to get to the bus station.  (Oddly enough, Guilin has three bus stations–thankfully, Norman had written down the name of the bus station, so we could continue to show it to people and ask where it was). 

We finally found the bus station (it was about 1 pm) and got in line to buy bus tickets to Longsheng, my next destination, and the hub for people wanting to get to “Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces.”  We got to the window and the attendant insisted that we didn’t want to go to Longsheng and instead that we wanted to go to Heping.  Hmm… Well, I think I know where I want to go.  I kept saying I wanted to go to Longsheng.  He kept saying we wanted to go to Heping and continued to resist.  He still wouldn’t sell us the tickets to Longsheng. Who knows why…  Finally, we boarded a bus to Heping.  Maybe it was faster…who knows…

The ride to Heping was a bit terrifying.  We were driving through mountains on narrow switchbacks with drops off the edge.  The view was spectacular though! 🙂  Sadly, I took no pictures of this because I was hanging on for dear life.  When we got to the ‘pass’ the bus stopped at what can best be described as a very tiny ‘convenience store/truck stop’ thing.  I’m not sure, but I think we stopped to add water to the bus.  I don’t know what that means. Don’t ask.

We made it to Heping.  Heping is basically a street.  We weren’t actually sure how we were going to get to Dazhai (which was our final destination) from Heping.  There were some minibus drivers where the bus dropped us off, but they were charging an arm and a leg to get to Dazhai.  (We decided that if we had to use this as a last resort, we would.)  The man at the bus station in Guilin who would not sell us tickets to Longsheng insisted that there was a public bus that went directly to Dazhai.  This is where we waited for an hour for the public bus.  We still enjoyed our time waiting and continually telling the minibus men that we didn’t want their service.  They kept approaching us and asking if we wanted to go with them.  So, I offered them the same price as the public bus (7元) and then they left us alone. 🙂  Everything is about money. And if you are foreign and in China, it is assumed that you have money. 

The bus finally showed up but there were no seats.  This does not stop the driver from taking us though.  Remember that thing about maximizing profits?  If he didn’t take us he would be missing out on fares.  So, we were standing for the ride.  Now, we were still pretty high in the mountains and had to come down a ways to make it to Dazhai.  These roads were even narrower than the other roads…and I was standing…hmmm.  The view was once again wonderful but I was not enjoying the ride.  I was anxious to arrive and get off the bus.  We stopped once along the way to pay our “National Park Fee” (again 50元) so that we could enjoy the rice terraces. 

We made it to Dazhai.  There were many native women who were more than willing to carry my bags for me…for a price. 😉 I just kept saying “Wo men bu yao xie xie.” (我们不要谢谢–We don’t want, thanks.)  We had come this far on our own with our bags, what was another 30 minutes? 🙂 hehehe…..

I called the woman at the hostel to see if there was a quick way to get there. She told me to give my phone to someone to talk to her and then that person would lead us.  We did this and were then on our way.  The woman who was leading us was tiny. Seriously tiny. Except her legs. She had calves of steel.  Probably from climbing up and down the mountain multiple times throughout the day.  We were doing horribly.  I knew that the hostel was on a hill but I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the hill.  Especially with a large travel backpack on my back and my day-pack on my front.  It as brutal.  The woman basically laughed at us the whole way up the hill.  It was a little humorous.  We were nearing the top (at least we thought) and decided to stop on a bridge for a bit to have a rest.

This is the tiny woman with the calves of steel.  I love her sweatshirt! Hilarious!  She kept asking to carry our bags.  Can you see why we kept saying no?  (She’s actually 20 years old! 😉 She just looks like she’s 65ish–hehe… We kept noticing that there were no school-age children in this village–only small children and adults/old people.) 

Finally we made it to the top (to Tiantouzhai) and after a bit of nonsense got checked into our rooms.  We then visited the ‘restaurant’ and enjoyed a lovely supper. 

I crashed that night after a really LONG day of trying to get to Tiantou village.  I think I fell asleep at around 9:30.  It was awesome.

See that building with the orange and red on it to the right? That was the guesthouse we stayed at. It was an awesome view from the room. 🙂