Longsheng Rice Terraces

One of the main attractions in this part of China, and one of the reasons I came to Guilin was the Longji Dragon-Back Rice Terraces near Longsheng. Instead of cycling there I took a minivan with a group from my hostel.

Rather than the usual style of writing about specific photos I’ll give an initial rundown then link to all the photos (mainly because I struggle to pick my favourites!).

So my hostel organised a van for a group to head up to the terraces. We paid $NZ20 each for it, not bad for a 2-3 hour  drive each way. It was a long drive though- lots of roadworks and when there weren’t roadworks it was pretty crazy driving! It was good to arrive a the destination, and we found ourselves at a hill village pretty soon.

The plan was that we got dropped off at one village, and we’d walk about 5 or 6 hours to another village to get picked up. We didn’t really have a map (and my GPS didn’t have the name of the destination), but we managed to find out way along. The path was in pretty good condition, and I really enjoyed it. It often followed the terraces, or would head straight up a ridge to a town. There were lots of packhorses around as well as local women carrying tourists bags in woven baskets on their back.

It was great to walk between the towns as it meant we got away from the towns near the roadends which had quite a few tourists around. Of course, when you’re walking in a group with 9 other westerners you’re kinda taking the tourists with you! :-)

We were a bit late to see the rice actually growing in the terraces- it’s all been harvested in the last few weeks. What we did see was the rice drying and being threshed- where the rice grains are removed from the stalks.

After walking about 14km we dropped down to the town of Ping An where we were getting picked up.

Overall it was a really good walk, and I’ll let the maps and photos do the talking.. Scroll down for the maps!

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