I had to wake up at 4:30 am in order to do this 4 hr hike around this other senic rice terrace area that would end in a Yao peoples town. It was a struggle getting up. pitch black still, but wait......at 4:22 a rooster outside my window starts cockadoodle dooin'. the chances of me getting a room with a rooster next to the window were great probably something like 8/10. This is not what got me out of bed though, remember i have EARPLUGS! It suddenly flashed in my mind that i would never have the chance to see the sun rise in this beautiful green land again so i had better get hustlin. in Beijing i have blogged that the sun comes up at like 4:30 because there is no daylight savings time. So i got myself together in 5 min and hustled up the maze of paths in the dark. Luckily 5 friendly doggies started following me and kind of showing me the path. I kept gathering more dogs as we went along. I had to meet my guide lady at 5 am so i had to hurry. I got up to the closest money spot and it didnt look like the sun was coming anytime soon so i hustled back to meet the lady. 
it was so dark we had to use flashlights at first.
3 dogs followed us for an hr and a half. the lady would periodically turn and hiss at them or throw rocks. she wanted them to go back to the town so they wouldn't be stranded 3 hrs from their real home. eventually 2 Yao people came along and she asked them if they would get the dogs to follow them back to Ping An (the town). It was funny to see her method of shooing the dogs, stomping, curses probably.
the sun finally came up around 6. good thing i didnt sit ontop of that hill for 1.5 hrs waiting for it.
the start of the irrigation process. i guess this water comes from somewhere even higher up and super far away.
random housing grouplets along the way
chicken tracks!
garbage. why.
i found a fern crown laying on a bench at this rest shelter. everyone who saw me for the rest of the day stared at me. some laughed but most did not. they probably thought i was a little lawrence of arabia or something.
this Yao lady came along. Yao women have super long hair and i guess its one of their draws because on every peice of literature it shows groups of yao women washing their super long hair in a river. Kind of looks like the length if they never cut is in their whole life. I know this because they kind of look like my buddy Sonu Satchdev that i went to school with in albany. he is Sikh Indian and they can't cut their hair ever so i saw his hair down once and it that long. He cut it off a few years ago and thusly bought his ticket to watever hell is for them. Bad Sonu Bad!
remember i am carrying my 45 pound backpack the whole time and slept for 2 hrs. but i guess this lady has it worse. what a woman!
One of the way cool things about walking around with my guide lady is that everyone we passed in the terraces directly around her village she was friends with and they would exchange pleasantries and talk as we would walk away, they have super hearing because we would be far away and they would still be talking. once we got out of range of the village she would still exchange pleasantries with the Yao people. It was cool to her this lady her and her chatting as we walked for 30 min. from different groups, different villages but so friendly. My guide lady was so cute, she laughed a lot and always did this Ooooh, oooh, oh thing in various pitches. the accent was funny. actually it reminds me a lot of a southern US accent when i think about it. Imagine how we say "mean" and deep southerners would say "mah iiin" thats how she was saying mei guo for america.
looks freshly worked
ferns, moss, banana trees, rice, chilies, wheat, lots of exotic bugs, butterflies
lady dissapearing into the rice. I have to say the Yao women are the minority group whose cultural style has the least going for them as far as looks. something about having all their hair since the day they were born wrapped in a swirl on the foremost region of their head makes me envision Sonu Satchdev in a skirt.
at this point its starting to get a lil hot. thank god i did this hike super early. and that i arrived late in the village the day before so i never felt the sun's rage for this leg of the journey. probably helps me to say this might be the best trip i have had in china.
i dont know how horses cross these. there was one that was 2 logs only. pretty scary, even scarier when you have a 45 lb bag on your back making you top heavy. i shuffled across like i was an 85 yr old chinese man, but im still alive. more than 2 log bridges are fine.
she said this was the kind of rice they use to make their rice wine, Mi jiu i think its called.
looks like a topographical map.
there would be random structures at time. rocks on the roof.
"Jason of somewhere between Ping An and some Yao village"
the Yao village. on the right is a school house. i think it was 9 am by this point. saw lots of kids running to the school house as the bell rang. So this hike is a 4 hr hike. We had to do it in 3 to make it in time for me to get the bus back to Guilin. my knees were destroyed, probably cuz of the extra bag weight. my feet were destroyed. i had chuck taylors on, they have no sole basically. there was a rock path the WHOLE WAY for 3 hrs! people power, that also meant me stepping on weird shaped rocks in my super thin soled converse, bruising up my feet. also i was sooo sleepy. but the sun was shining, the air was clean, we ate breakfast and life was beautiful for a moment. If anyone reads this i would recommend doing this hike in 6 hrs. you need to really take breaks and enjoy the scenery. going slower allows you to notice the little things too. I saw a few other who showed up wiht guys carrying their stuff in baskets. one guy had two guys carrying tons of photography equipement. looked super heavy but im sure they were fine because they are super nimble mountain fairies. I should have done that. the guide lady kept insisting she carry my bag and i was like no way you weigh 75 lbs I will carry it. she was probably restraining herself from kicking my @ss. also she was wearing cloth chinese shoes, now those really don't have a sole. magical mountain fairies.
speaking of fairies, here i am in that fern crown.
more fatty pork
I relinquish my crown. Thanks Long Ji area for having me for a brief memorable moment in time.
it was so dark we had to use flashlights at first.
3 dogs followed us for an hr and a half. the lady would periodically turn and hiss at them or throw rocks. she wanted them to go back to the town so they wouldn't be stranded 3 hrs from their real home. eventually 2 Yao people came along and she asked them if they would get the dogs to follow them back to Ping An (the town). It was funny to see her method of shooing the dogs, stomping, curses probably.
the sun finally came up around 6. good thing i didnt sit ontop of that hill for 1.5 hrs waiting for it.
the start of the irrigation process. i guess this water comes from somewhere even higher up and super far away.
random housing grouplets along the way
chicken tracks!
garbage. why.
i found a fern crown laying on a bench at this rest shelter. everyone who saw me for the rest of the day stared at me. some laughed but most did not. they probably thought i was a little lawrence of arabia or something.
this Yao lady came along. Yao women have super long hair and i guess its one of their draws because on every peice of literature it shows groups of yao women washing their super long hair in a river. Kind of looks like the length if they never cut is in their whole life. I know this because they kind of look like my buddy Sonu Satchdev that i went to school with in albany. he is Sikh Indian and they can't cut their hair ever so i saw his hair down once and it that long. He cut it off a few years ago and thusly bought his ticket to watever hell is for them. Bad Sonu Bad!
remember i am carrying my 45 pound backpack the whole time and slept for 2 hrs. but i guess this lady has it worse. what a woman!
One of the way cool things about walking around with my guide lady is that everyone we passed in the terraces directly around her village she was friends with and they would exchange pleasantries and talk as we would walk away, they have super hearing because we would be far away and they would still be talking. once we got out of range of the village she would still exchange pleasantries with the Yao people. It was cool to her this lady her and her chatting as we walked for 30 min. from different groups, different villages but so friendly. My guide lady was so cute, she laughed a lot and always did this Ooooh, oooh, oh thing in various pitches. the accent was funny. actually it reminds me a lot of a southern US accent when i think about it. Imagine how we say "mean" and deep southerners would say "mah iiin" thats how she was saying mei guo for america.
looks freshly worked
ferns, moss, banana trees, rice, chilies, wheat, lots of exotic bugs, butterflies
lady dissapearing into the rice. I have to say the Yao women are the minority group whose cultural style has the least going for them as far as looks. something about having all their hair since the day they were born wrapped in a swirl on the foremost region of their head makes me envision Sonu Satchdev in a skirt.
at this point its starting to get a lil hot. thank god i did this hike super early. and that i arrived late in the village the day before so i never felt the sun's rage for this leg of the journey. probably helps me to say this might be the best trip i have had in china.
i dont know how horses cross these. there was one that was 2 logs only. pretty scary, even scarier when you have a 45 lb bag on your back making you top heavy. i shuffled across like i was an 85 yr old chinese man, but im still alive. more than 2 log bridges are fine.
she said this was the kind of rice they use to make their rice wine, Mi jiu i think its called.
looks like a topographical map.
there would be random structures at time. rocks on the roof.
"Jason of somewhere between Ping An and some Yao village"
the Yao village. on the right is a school house. i think it was 9 am by this point. saw lots of kids running to the school house as the bell rang. So this hike is a 4 hr hike. We had to do it in 3 to make it in time for me to get the bus back to Guilin. my knees were destroyed, probably cuz of the extra bag weight. my feet were destroyed. i had chuck taylors on, they have no sole basically. there was a rock path the WHOLE WAY for 3 hrs! people power, that also meant me stepping on weird shaped rocks in my super thin soled converse, bruising up my feet. also i was sooo sleepy. but the sun was shining, the air was clean, we ate breakfast and life was beautiful for a moment. If anyone reads this i would recommend doing this hike in 6 hrs. you need to really take breaks and enjoy the scenery. going slower allows you to notice the little things too. I saw a few other who showed up wiht guys carrying their stuff in baskets. one guy had two guys carrying tons of photography equipement. looked super heavy but im sure they were fine because they are super nimble mountain fairies. I should have done that. the guide lady kept insisting she carry my bag and i was like no way you weigh 75 lbs I will carry it. she was probably restraining herself from kicking my @ss. also she was wearing cloth chinese shoes, now those really don't have a sole. magical mountain fairies.
speaking of fairies, here i am in that fern crown.
more fatty pork
I relinquish my crown. Thanks Long Ji area for having me for a brief memorable moment in time.
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