Thursday 1 November – The visit to the Longsheng Rice Terraces was absolutely magical.

We started off by climbing up to the Nine Dragons and Five Tigers Scenic viewing point.  Easy said but in reality a hard steep climb up concrete and rock steps to the viewing point which is high up on top of a hill, overlooking Ping’an Village and the rice terraces.  However the views at the top were worth the effort.

We then walked from the viewing point to Longji Zhuang Village, a two hour hike, which took us through the rice terraces. Longji Zhuang Village is fairly isolated and has only recently been opened up to tourists.  So it gets relatively few visitors, from what we saw we were the only westerners visiting the village and we only saw a handful of Chinese tourists. The village is on a ridge with the rice terraces circling down to the Jin River far below.

We stopped overnight in the village in a Daiojialou, a large traditional wooden house which has been turned into a hotel called The Dragon Hill Scenic Hotel.  Our tour guide Emma had told us it was very basic , but to our surprise it was very nice and the rooms and the facilities were much better than we had expected. The views from the wooden widows and balcony over the rice terraces was amazing.

We had our evening meal in Grandma Hou’s Daiojialou wooden house.  This was large but very basic.  One solitary electric light in each room, wooden floors, nothing on the walls but posters, very basic cooking and sleeping facilities.  But spotlessly clean.

For our meal we had local rice and chicken cooked in bamboo.  They split the bamboo into two, they place the food inside, then tie the two halves together, before cooking it in an open fire.  We also had beef and vegetables cooked in a wok, Tofu cooked in a tomato sauce and egg and greens mixed together.  The food was very nice.

After our meal we had a long chat with Grandma Hou about her life, how hard farming the land is, the Cultural Revolution and her hopes for children – that they get a good education which allows them to get a job other than farming.  She was a big Chairman Mao fan and spoke about how hard and poor the villagers were before the communists under Chairman Mao took over in 1949 and how the villagers lives had improved since then.

Today (Thursday 1 November) – We got up at 6.30am to watch the sunrise over the rice terraces, which was very special. Scott went onto the flat roof of the hotel to fly his drone and take some video footage.

After breakfast, scrambled egg – the lady at the hotel had never done scrambled egg before so Emma had to explain to her how to make it – we travelled to Daxu Old Town which is situated by the Li River.  This is a well preserved ancient village which suffered very badly in the Cultural Revolution.  The houses date from the Ming (1368 to 1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911).

While in the village we went to see Mr Zhou, in his basic but fascinating wooden house.  He lives a very simple life but he was a lovely old man.  He had been sent to work in the rice fields for 7 years during the cultural revolution, but he still had a large poster of Chairman Mao on his sitting room wall and still had his Red Book which he had been given by the Red Guards and which he had to learn by heart during the Cultural Revolution.

We decided to miss going to the top of Yao Mountain as we did not fancy going up in the open and very scary looking chair lift!!

We finished the day by visiting Elephant Trunk Hill which is the symbol of the City of Guilin.  Its a hill that looks like an elephant drinking from the river.

Tomorrow (Friday 2 November) we travel by Bullet Train to Hong Kong.