Got a bus from Yangshou back to Guilin - Choka again
We're trekking through the rice terraces of Longji for the next couple of days, up in the mountains known as the Dragons Spine.
We're staying with the Yao people tonight in Dazai.
The mountains here are populated by a number of different minority groups most are the Zhuang but there are others, Miao, Dong, and our Yao people.
The Yao women still wear their traditional gear, bright pink tops adn black skirts and black leggings, they have long hair that goes down to the floor and they rap it round their heads and pin it together.
The Yao people apparently still hunt for a living and are described by the locals as rustic savages that are just happy to own a gun and a knife!!!
In Guilin we left our big bags in storage and got on another bus. This mini bus still had 17 of us and a good 10 Chinese on it and there were about 15 seats.
They use buses i n this part of China as a post man as their isnt a postal service here so Chickens, Dogs, boxes and parcels are put on a bus and collected at their destination.
The bus took us into mountainous countryside. It is epic countryside as well. The kind I imagine Canada's Rocky's look like. The kind you'd see hairy bears in.
On the journey saw:
- Duck farms
- Babies on Mopeds (no helmets)
- Two Babies on a moped
- Lettece growing in the ground on the road side
- Drivers overtaking on blind corners.
The bus stopped randomly and we were ushered off on litterally jumped onto another one which took us higher up the mountains.
The rivers are bluer tahn blue here adn the mountains are so densely covered in bamboo and trees that no part of the mountain floor is visable.
Coupke of hours and we reached the village of Dazai. Its an hour trek (the last 500m above sea level) up to where we are staying.
The terraces are already in sight. The village, with its wooden homes and cobbled paths is squeezed into a steep fold in the mountain.
The people here are very friendly, we passed many of them hearding cows and horses, which were carrying bricks and sticks.
These valleys have only recently got electricity and phone lines. Alot of traders from Yangshou have come over to surrounding villages and towns with a better knowledge of tourist and their need for crappy souvenirs, which is making it harder for the local minority groups to ern a living. None here in Dazai though.
Played a few games of Mahjong.
Had food straight from the ground, all local to that village, probably even to that house.
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