Guangxi: Guilin and the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces

After an arduous 35 hour journey filled with restless sleep and the ever present churning stomach, sprinkled with mad dashes to the bathroom, I finally arrived in Guangxi province at six am. Rather than heading to the province’s capital and largest city of Nanning, I opted to pass straight through it and continue east, onto the famous river city of Guilin. The popular tourist destination of Guilin is situated on the Li River and is most famous for its karst mountains, which can be seen on the 20rmb note, and are regularly depicted in traditional Chinese art.

I had heard great things about Guilin, Yangshuo and the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces and I had planned to spend a good ten days travelling between the three locations. My first stop was to be Guilin itself, before heading north after a few days to see the rice terraces then turning back south, and taking a boat down the Li River to Yangshuo.

Because I felt I had wasted most of my time in Yunnan I decided to get this tummy situation sorted. I was closing in on 10 days of barely eating and was rapidly running out of Hydralyte and patience. I had been in contact with a friend back home in Australia who told me she was pretty sure I must actually have a parasite rather than just a bit of standard food poisoning and I would need antibiotics. So after arriving and making my way to the really excellent Wada Hostel I took myself to the nearest chemist and began a ridiculous round of broken Chinese and charades with a most helpful girl behind the counter. I left feeling hopeful, returning to the hostel to wait for my room to become available, discreetly trying to translate the instructions on my Chinese antibiotics.

Since I was still feeling very delicate I spent the rest of this first day doing the usual boring business of washing my filthy clothes, booking accommodation for my Yangshuo and Dragon’s Backbone trips, and working out how to spend my next few days in Guilin. By the end of that very night I was already feeling a little better and even managed to eat a proper meal… Chinese style stir-fried potato never tasted so good.

Feeling braver than I had in a long time I decided to head over to the Two Rivers and Four Lakes Scenic Spot for the evening. I had seen pictures of the Sun and Moon pagodas that the spot is famous for and I knew I wanted to see them at night to get the full effect. The bus journey there was brief and the walk from the main road to the lake side garden was only a matter a minutes.

One thing that still leaves me in awe of China is the way one moment you can be in a completely modernized busy urban street, and the next moment you turn a corner to be faced with beautiful gardens filled with traditional Chinese structures. The Two Rivers and Four Lakes scenic spot did not fail to disappoint in this respect. I spent the next few hours winding my way around the Mulong River and Guihu River, admiring the carved marble frogs and weeping willows, waiting for the sun to disappear from view. I sat for a while beside Taohua River watching families and young couples pass by, as they regularly stopped for photos beside the peach blossom trees.

The lights on the Sun and Moon pagodas were turned on and I could see them shining in the distance. I began to make my way closer in hopes of taking some great photos. On the way I ran into a particularly curious bunch of Chinese children who wanted to chat with me.

Being above average height in China and having blonde hair I tend to stick out in a crowd. I am fairly used to the constant stares, the whispering of ‘waiguoren’ and ‘laowai’ and the sneaky photos being taken of me, but it is still fairly rare for locals to talk me unless I speak first. I am almost always happy to let them practice their English on me in the same way that I love to practice my Chinese with them, so when three little kids ran over to me asking me if I was from England, I stopped and chatted with them for a while. We ran through the usual rhetoric of where I was from, how old I am, what I do, and if I liked China, while their parents stood nearby grinning from ear to ear. It never ceases to amaze me how something as simple having a chat with me can excite Chinese people. After talking with them for bit I was able to ascertain they themselves were travellers to Guilin, having come from Qinghai, a province in the West of China that borders with Tibet. I know very little of Qinghai, except that it is fairly remote, which was proved to me when the eldest child told me she had never seen a foreigner before. Again, this is something that always comes as a little shock to me, which comes from having grown up in such a multicultural society. We chatted for maybe twenty minutes before taking some photos together and then going our separate ways.

New friends in Guilin.

I forged my way through the thickening crowd of people wanting to see the pagodas and managed to take some fantastic photos of the structures reflecting theirs lights onto the calm lake. The Moon pagoda stands at seven storeys high while the taller of the two, the Sun pagoda, peaks out at nine storeys. The Moon pagoda is made of coloured glaze and the Sun pagoda is made of bronze, which goes some way to explain their being also known as the gold and silver pagodas, as they shine beautifully in the night. I stood at the water’s edge for some times taking photos before making steps to head back to the hostel where I made a night of it and slept the deep sleep that only the truly exhausted can appreciate.

Sun and Moon Pagodas.

The next day, thanks to the wonderful advice of my dear friend Hannah, I was feeling 80% better and that percentage was more than enough to motivate me to get back out there and explore. I grabbed a free map from the counter and headed out on my way to see the sights Guilin had to offer. My first destination was Jingjiang Prince’s City, which I was told housed an isolated karst mountain known as the Solitary Beauty Peak, which offered a superb view of the entirety of Guilin.

Guilin.

I spent some time wandering throughout the ‘city in a city’, discovering its halls, temples and pavilions. Toward the very back of Jingjiang Prince’s City I could see the Solitary Beauty Peak thrusting itself into the sky. In the harsh 30 degree heat I trudged my way to the peak of the tall column-like mountain and was not disappointed by the gorgeous panoramic view of Guilin City. The view was phenomenal, the sky was blue, and I was able to see the more famous karst mountains beside the Li River in the distance.  After spending far too long taking photos and attempting selfies my jelly legs began their slow decent back down to the bottom. I then hid in the shade of some beautiful willow trees, slurping down sweet fresh watermelon I had bought from one of the many opportunistic vendors waiting at the bottom for exhausted and thirsty tourist, just like myself. The efforts of my day after so many quiet ones were taking its toll on my weak body and by around four in the afternoon I decided to splurge on a taxi back to the hostel where I took a quick nap, hoping to wake-up in time to participate in the free dumpling banquet the hostel was offering.

I awoke refreshed and hungry. I made my way to the enclosed garden in the hostel where the reception staff were setting up for the dumpling banquet. A group of around 14 foreigners were crowded around the dumpling table, all attempting to make dumplings, mostly for the first time and it was great fun. I spent most of the dumpling time listening in to a conversation between a fellow Australian and a Canadian, who were attempting to outdo each other on who knew the most obscure alternative bands, leaving me to ponder the universality of hipsters.

Soon enough we had made enough dumplings to feed a small army and so we all settled down around the communal table, beers in hand, waiting for the dumplings to cook. During this time I got to do one of my favourite things that arise from travelling; I got to know some of my fellow travellers. Most of my time in Yunnan was a missed opportunity here, as I was usually in bed or hiding from the world, and after over a week of near solitude I was aching for some company. Basic introductions were made, swapping of Chinese travel stories, as well as the ubiquitous talk of how different the Chinese are from Westerners. I soon learnt that the two girls sitting to the left of me were planning to head in a similar direction as me on their Guangxi trip and that we had booked to stay in the same hostel in Yangshuo. I took an immediate liking to the hilariously sarcastic cousins from England and Northern Ireland and we made plans to visit the night market together the next day. A few hours later I was full to bursting from dumplings and tired again from all the action, so I hit the sack in preparation for another day of sightseeing.

The next day I was feeling better than ever. I tucked into a hearty breakfast in preparation for a full day of touring Guilin. After speaking with the super helpful girls behind the counter of my hostel, I decided to take the bus journey out to see the Reed Flute Cave, a forty minute bus ride out of the city centre.

The caves are an exceptionally famous landmark in Guilin, and while I had been told the previous night that there was a fairly high tack factor coming from the multicoloured lighting, it was still quite breathtaking. After arriving I paid the unusually high entrance price and began to realise that the rumours of Guilin being a money pit were shaping up to be true.

I queued for some time before being led deep down into the caves on a Chinese tour, very little of which I could understand, but would still prove to be quite amazing. The caves themselves were sweet relief from the summer heat outside and I was happy to be feeling cool for the first time in many weeks.

The Reed Flute Cave is a natural limestone cave over 180 million years old and is now decked out with the luminous multi-coloured lighting that the Chinese seem to love so much. The name of the cave come from a particular type of reed the used to grow at the entrance many years ago which can be crafted into a flute.

The water eroded Reed Flute Cave is truly a sight to be seen filled with a large number of stalactites, stalagmites, stone pillars and rock formations in wide range of shapes. As I followed the Chinese speaking guide and the rest of our large group I tried my best to listen into her talk but I struggled with most of what she said.  I did realise however that each point throughout the cave we stopped at was given a name to reflect its view and sprinkled throughout the cave there were poetically mistranslated English signs. Pines in the Snow, Mushrooms Hill, Sky-Scraping Twin, Lettuce Forests and Towering Pisa were some personal highlights. As we wandered through the cave there were plenty of opportunities to throw money away on professional photographs and turtle petting, but I skipped these and took the time to sneak away into areas off the tour path, revelling in the cool atmosphere. It really was a most impressive site and I was glad to have visited.

"Mini Guilin Karst Mountains" in the Reed Flute Cave.

All too soon the tour was over and we were herded back out into the heat. As I passed through the ubiquitous gift shop area, I ran into an Irish guy who I had met the night before at the hostels dumpling night, and together we made our way past the boisterous vendors to a shaded area by a lake to wait for his friend Angela. As we waited we were approached by a sweet young lady offering us a boat ride, for a price of course, and after a few minutes of bartering I managed to get her to agree to give the three of us a ride across the river to the bus stop for 10rmb each.

I was very excited to board her bamboo raft. I have always been a big fan of doing anything on, in or near water, and Guilin was providing us with amazing weather. The perfect blue skies and the warm sun had me desperate to run my hands through the cool water and the low bamboo raft provided an excellent opportunity for me to do so. I had fantasies of taking my hiking boots off and cooling my heels but before I even looked at my laces we had crossed the river and it was time to wobble our way to shore.

After busing back into town and grabbing a quick bite to eat I parted ways with my new friends and decided to head back to the hostel for a rest before hitting the night market. I was excited to visit the market since my mother had visited it three years earlier while visiting me and had told me it was a highlight. I had been really tight with my money for my entire trip but I was willing to part with a bit of cash if this market really was as good as I had been led to believe.

I met up with Melissa and Debra, the cousins from the previous night, as well Angela who I had met at the caves earlier that day and we bussed our way downtown to visit the night market. Immediately we were surrounded on all sides by never-ending stalls of overpriced touristy crap. From the typical traditional style watercolour paintings, to extremely expensive rip off jade bracelets, to the most revolting looking fake gold and diamante laden necklaces, everywhere we looked we were surrounded by tack. I was somewhat disappointed as I wandered from booth to booth only to encounter more of the same. I found nothing here I had not seen a hundred times before on my travels, often for twice the asking price I had previously encountered, proving to me that Guilin really was the money pit I had been lead to believe it was.

After spending an hour or so wandering about the market we decided to grab something to eat. We found a stall on the side of the road serving up fresh dishes of cold noodles, a perfect complement to the warm night, so Debra, Melissa and I each ordered up some to try. Our fourth companion by this stage was starting to act very strangely.

Angela had previously told us some amazing stories of her life, how she was a published author, having written her first book at the age of 25, and also how she is a freelance travel writer currently hired by Lonely Planet to write about China. However the more time we spent with her, the more her story was starting to be at odds with her actions. This particular evening she refused to eat the noodles with us, claiming to never eat outside of hostels where possible, due to the cleanliness and higher safety standards (which is completely at odds with my entire experience as a traveller so far). What kind of travel writer could possibly write about a country without having ever experienced real local food?

Previously that day she and I had walked and talked around the Flute Reed Cave and where she told me she loathed to take public transport and preferred to take taxis instead. Yet another element that to me seemed at odds with being a genuine budget travel writer. She also had an intense dislike of any physical activity and had whinged and complained as we hiked our way up the karst hill to a great view of the city. Angela seemed to be a walking contradiction.

So the three of us ate our delicious noodles in relative silence, while listening to this strange girl talk about how revolting everything smelt and looked, before she suddenly bolted out of the market.  Debra, Melissa and I collectively sighed a breath of relief and finished off our noodles before heading off to wind up our tour of the market, before heading back to the hostel. The next day I was taking off for an overnight trip to the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces and the girls would be making their way down to Yangzhou. Since we would be staying at the same hostel down there we made a loose plan to meet up again when I headed that way myself in a few days. We parted ways and I returned to my dorm to pack in anticipation of my trip north.

The Rice Terraces are considered to be one of the top ten sights to see in China and I had long been wanting to check them out. I had read extensively about them and the best times to photograph them. The general consensus seemed to be that spring was best, when the rainy season floods out the paddies, reflecting the skies throughout the hills. Unfortunately I had well and truly missed that opportunity but I was still anxious to get up to Longsheng County and see them for myself.

The next morning I locked my large backpack in the storage facility of my hostel and took my smaller overnight bag with me to the bus station. From there I was on a three hour journey north of Guilin to the Dragon’s Backbone.  Aside from the poor small child next to me constantly nodding off and falling onto me, the trip was mostly uneventful, just an overcrowded bus slowly winding uphill.

By eleven o’clock the bus ground to a halt outside the traditional style Chinese gates of Dazhai Village, and the usual mass exodus from public transport began, I waited impatiently to alight myself.  I had booked myself a night at a hostel here in the terraces so I headed off in search of my abode using a map I found on the back of a flier. It claimed the hostel was not far from the entrance and I followed the vague instructions as best I could. After nearly an hour of looking I had come up with nothing. I asked several local shop owners if they knew where it was but the responses I received ranged only from head scratches, vague pointing and slightly dubious offers of better, cheaper accommodation.

I was beginning to tire, I was badly in need of a bathroom, and was beginning to become frustrated with the lack of help I was getting. A phone call to the hostel itself was even less fruitful, and as I stood in the middle of a busy walkway with the summer sun beating down on my neck, I had a moment where I felt like laying down and thrashing my limbs. I opted against this line of action and instead closed my eyes and took some deep breaths.

When I opened my eyes I saw a sweet middle aged lady staring up at me. She asked me if I was lost and offered to call back the hostel for more info. I gratefully threw my phone at her praying that her Chinese conversation would prove more rewarding than mine. A minute later this kind lady was leading me up a steep and winding path out of the village that rests at the entrance to the Terraces, further up into the hills than I ever thought possible given the vague instructions I had been reading. She guided me on for a while before reaching a fork in the road and telling me this is where we would part. I thanked her profusely and began to hike the steep path further up into the rice terraces.

Longsheng is home to four minority nationalities: Miao, Yao, Dong and Zhuang. It is the Yao people who are the most striking, having a unique style of clothing and hair which set them apart from the other ethnic groups. Yao women are famous for never cutting their hair, instead wrapping it into a bun on top of their head in a style resembling that of an Indian turban.

Local Yao woman in Dazhai Village.

As I laboured my way up toward my hostel I was often overtaken by local Yao women, who can be seen striding up and down the hills from daylight until dark, carrying the luggage of tourists for a fee. I was in utter awe of these women. Most of them appeared to be well into their sixties, all of them tiny in height and weight, brown and weather beaten from being in the sun day in day out. They were powering up the hills, carrying woven baskets on their backs, loaded with other people’s backpacks and suitcases that in some cases must have been equal to their own weight. I would see them stop intermittently, waiting for their unburdened tourist companions to catch up with them, seemingly never tired or out of breathe. Rather, they all seemed merely exasperated at the laziness of these non locals.

I was glad I had chosen to only bring my day pack and not my huge backpack, as I struggled up the seemingly never ending hills. I kept up what I considered to be a decent pace, passing a constant stream of slow moving Chinese tourists, taking in the lush green scenery all the while.

By two o’clock I had reached the next village, Tiantouzai Village, and my hostel. Like most of the buildings in the area, the hostel was a beautiful timber structure build into the side of the surrounding mountains, rectangular and three stories high. In the end I had had to trek for hours up winding cobbled paths before reaching it.

I fell in the doors exhausted, sweaty and in dire need of the bathroom. “Booking under the name of White” I pant heavily at the woman seated behind the tiny desk. She leafs through her bookings several times before informing me I didn’t have a reservation. Suddenly it occurs to me that I had researched hostels and selected this one, but somewhere along the line actually booking a room had escaped me, I had completely forgotten to do it. I was relieved to learn however that there was still room available in a three bed dorm, despite it being peak season, which I gratefully accepted before throwing money and my passport at her and running off to find my room.

I threw my belongings on my bed and took in my surroundings. The interior of my rooms mirrored the outside exactly, made from a beautiful light coloured timber, with huge windows facing out into the terraces. The sky here was the kind of blue I was used to seeing back home in Tasmania, but is rarely ever seen in the more populated areas of China, and there was not a cloud in the sky. The rice fields were a stunning verdant green creating one of the lushest landscapes I had had the pleasure of seeing in a long time. All labour in the area is completed by hand, there was no sound of construction or any kind of motorised equipment, and the serenity I felt looking out my window was profound.

The view from my hostel room in Tiantouzhai Village.

I wandered back downstairs in search of nourishment, which I took sitting outside in the summer sun, looking out at the beauty that surrounded me. Even now I can still close my eyes and see the vibrant contrast of the blue and green, hear the breeze gently moving through the rice paddies, and it calms my heart. I sat in silence sipping my cold beer feeling relaxed and content to just sit.

I was planning to stay only overnight, intending to have an early night so that I could wake at 5:00am the next morning and hike the rest of the way to the top of the mountain before sunrise. I had heard that the view of the sun rising up and flooding the terraces with sunlight was incomparable and I was so hoping to see it myself. I decided to do a dry run that afternoon in order to check how difficult the path would be to navigate in the dark and see if my intended 45 minute window would give me enough time to make it to the summit. I set off, camera in hand, and spent the next three hours hiking up and down the terraces. The beauty of this place still haunts me.

I came back to my hostel in time to sit on the porch and watch the sunset while I ate an early dinner. As the sky darkened I could see stars shining brightly up above me. In Wuxi where I now live, I can sometimes see a handful on a really clear night, but this was something else. It is amazing how a small thing, such as a sky full of twinkling stars, can flood me with such happiness. I realised, not for the first time in China, just how much I had taken them for granted when I was back in Australia.

The small dots lining the hills, indicating local houses along the paths, suddenly cut out. The power supply up in Longsheng is erratic at best, and I had heard the government can even completely off cut access at will, and I took this as a cue to begin my early night. I took to my room, relieved to see my two room-mates were still out, and prepared myself for getting up at my newly revised time of 4:00am.

Sure enough, in the pitch black dark, I dragged myself out of bed and wearily made my way downstairs to let myself out of the hostel. I unlocked the door and stepped out into even more black. I carefully began my way up and out of Tiantouzai Village to the peak of the mountain. Stupidly I had managed to overlook taking my torch out of my main backpack and into my overnight pack, so I proceeded to use my only other form of light to guide my way up the path, my ever trusty iPad mini.

The climb was long and the rugged paths were quite difficult to navigate in the almost pitch black of the morning but by five thirty I had managed to get as near to the top as possible and decided to settle in to watch the sunrise. I perched myself on a cement seat and quietened my growling stomach with some yoghurt and fruit, scanning the now softly illuminated horizon for a glimpse at the first sun rays. Soon I began to realise that the misty skies above me were not going to clear. I had initially assumed it was mere early morning fog but I was wrong. As I finished my yoghurt I began to feel a cool damp breeze on my face; the beginning of what was to be a morning of drizzle. The light rain felt great on my hot face, and despite the lack of clarity the haze had cause, the view was still fantastic. My photos did not do the sunrise justice as it was far more beautiful that I was able to capture. I sat for the longest time just enjoying the silence and the splendour of the place.

The slightly misty morning view from the top of the terraces.

My bus ride back to Guilin was due to leave at one pm, so by nine I decided it was time to begin my descent, taking it slowly to both continue enjoying the view and not slip over in the rain. In the end I managed only one of these tasks, instead falling into a rice terrace at one point, and burying my foot in mud up to the top of my hiking boot. I only wish I had fallen again so as to even out the amount of dirt on my shoes.

After getting back to the hostel with plenty of time left, I showered, packed, ate and checked out, all well before my departure time, giving me more opportunity to slowly walk down from the village to the bus stop. I could feel how recharged the trip had made me. My time of travelling around China during peak season was beginning to take its toll. The constant noise, traffic and the blistering heat were all starting to become frustrating to me, but being able to escape it all just for 24 hours was enough to calm me and reinvigorate me. As a result I was now eager to head back to Guilin for one night before leaving early the next day on a cruise down the river Li to Yangshuo. I could not wait to get down there!