Ping' An and Yangshou

A few days ago we caught a series of buses to the small village of Ping' An and spent the night in among the beautiful rice terraces. The scenery was breathtaking and it was so quiet. We only stayed one night but could easily have stayed much longer.

When we stepped off the last bus, we were in the middle of a swarm of dragon flies, large amber colored ones. We had to pay a small fee to enter the Long Ji terrace. Long Ji Titan is the Dragon's backbone rice terrace. We ended up choosing a hostel at the top of the village. After a climb up limestone slab stairs to the very highest hostel/cabin we were only a matter of five minutes from the top of the mountain and a very scenic view point. Our window overlooked the river valley below and, unlike the rest of China, we couldn't hear a sound.

 

The worlds most beautiful rice terraces - the Dragons Backbone in Ping' An

 While chatting with other guests, our hostess informed us that dinner was ready. Much to our pleasure, for 8 Yuan (US$1) we had a beautiful dinner of potato with garlic, sautéed eggplant, sautéed squash with garlic, tofu, scrambled egg with fresh mint and rice. It was served family style with only one uninvited guest, what looked like the worlds largest mosquito. Next day in the cool of the morning we walked to the view point for some photos. Sara returned to the hostel, and Ian hiked on for a while in the mid-morning sun. The walk down to the mini-bus was much quicker than the walk up and three buses later we were back in Yangshuo.

After the character building train ride from Yichang, we spent several days in a little village called Yangshuo. The heart of the town is lined with small two story buildings and is for foot traffic only. Street level are small shops and one cafe after another. Surrounding the city center are massive limestone pinnacles, and some close to town they light up at night. It was nice to have a proper meal and a hot shower, but Ian's dinner of snake was not to my liking.

Getting ready for a snake dinner with Faye & Alan with our tour guide Tina

The limestone pinnacles around Yangshou

We arranged to go for a mountain bike ride to Moon Hill with a guide named Tina. During the height of the afternoon heat she took us to her uncle's house to get out of the sun. While we had tea, she was showing us how to write our names in Chinese characters and when Ian asked her to write his, she giggled and said that the characters would be the same as her Chinese name, Ying. We stopped by a small river to ride a bamboo raft to a 1000 year old banyan tree. The driver asked if Ian wanted to try using the bamboo pole to steer for a while, and it ended up that the driver sat next to me for the whole trip, because Ian enjoyed driving so much.

The bamboo raft trip near Yangshou

The next morning Ian joined Tina and another tour group for a river cruise to see Nine Horse Hill. He said he only saw 5 horses in the hill and when we asked some of the locals most have only saw 2 or 3 of the horses. Apparently it helps to smoke a little to be able to see all nine horses.

The river cruise to Nine Horse Hill