After an early morning run and a full breakfast we made it way to the train station to meet everyone that on the tour.
We took a 2 hour bus ride to Longji terrace. This guy hooked a ride on the bus the whole way.
We hiked to the restaurant in PingAn village. They make their own rice wine here.
Longji Rice Terraces, which means Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces, was given its name because the rice terraces resemble a dragon’s scales and the mountain range looks like the backbone of a dragon. It is noted as one of the most beautiful rice terraces in the world and has taken 600 years to build.
We visited the “Seven Stars Accompany the Moon”, which is made of seven small piles of rocks left on purpose by people when they dig up the terraces and a
moon-shaped terrace in the middle.
We also went to another platform
called “Nine Dragons and Five Tigers”. The nine ridges
spread from the main vein of Dragon’s Backbone, which look
like nine dragons bending over to drink water from the Jinsha river.
We then hiked to Zhongliu village. We had to go up and over larger hills and walked around the rice Terraces. Throughout the jungle were other rice Terraces and crypts or vaults built into the terraces were found for those who died.
There are many ethnic groups dwelling in that area and they
account for more than one third of local total population. Our night was a homestay with a family from the local Yao minority. Their one street dog followed us the whole way. I learned to speak Chinese to ask if I could give him the leftover pork. There Chinese lessons are paying off.
