Longji Rice Terraces

Before heading to Yangshuo we spent a night high in the paddy fields at Longji along with numerous Chinese nationals and a good few foreigners. The track up the hillside was relatively easy just the heat the killer. The locals carted up to 100 kgs on their backs including a number of lazy people in traditional seats who couldn't make it up the hill. We are travelling light with about 5 kgs each so no bother for us. Everything is carted by hand up to the villages beer, cement, bricks you name it it is lugged on backs, in the heat I felt my 5kg and I only went up once not like the locals up and down with tourists heavy bags and supplies for the village. Our beer seemed very cheap at $1.50 NZ and made us appreciate every sip. The views were spectacular over the terraced paddy fields stretching as far as the eye could see. We were in the heat of summer but come winter the snow falls and the vista would be quite different I don't' think I would like to be there in winter as the houses only have a concrete pad in them on the second floor for a wood fire for heating and insulation hasn't been heard of in this village. The women don't cut their hair and they grow it up to 2m long we paid for a long hair photo with them, it was so ,long, shiny and combed their pride and joy. We were told they wash it in a mixture of fermented rice and tea tree oil. Once again a few hours after we arrived a storm had gone through and the power was marginal and no hot water or air con again. In fact I think he air con is fallacy!! Food wasn't an issue as most cooked over wood fires except for the larger hotels but don't get fooled by our western ideas of hotels they were all very local. We had planned on two nights there but after doing the walks between villages the weather closed in and with no facilities, plenty of mosquitoes we decided to move on before I was a red mess of itchy bites even good ole NZ bushman wasn't up to the task at times.