Trip To South China Part 8

The following morning we packed up and checked out of our room.  Once again we were blessed to have the privilege to listen to the local trumpet player.  Threats were made against his life by unnamed members of our party, but before they could be carried out we departed.  That trumpet player should send to thanks to whatever deity is looking out for him.

There is something to note about Chinese long distance buses, they will pick up and drop off anyone along their road. So what starts off as a mostly empty bus ends up being packed, with an old strange smelling man sitting next to you.

5 hours and a change in buses later we soon found ourselves outside the Longhi Terraces Park.  The Longji Terraces are a famous series of mountains transformed into rice patties by cutting terraces into them (duh).  They are stunningly beautiful and while extremely tiring this was by far my favorite part of Guilin.

The entire village is built along the side of the mountain and it's easily a 100 yard climb up to it.  With massive backpacks on, that gets tiring real quick.  While trying to find our hostel Clement and I made a most amusing discovery, despite growing up on a rural farm Sandra was deathly afraid of chickens.  This would be a source of great amusement as Clement and I would later share the role of "Chicken Scouts."

After being told by a French woman to simply follow the smell of pig we had no problem finding our tucked away hostel.  Luckily the smell faded as we entered and was replaced by pleasant wood smell.  After the now expected confusion we've had with booking rooms online we found our room and unpacked.  But no time for idleness we were soon hiking to the local scenic spots.  Holy crap were these mountains beautiful, a perfect mix between nature and manmade beauty.

Back in our rooms we planned to get up around 8, strap on our fully loaded backpacks and hike for four hours to the next village, Dazhou, so we went to bed pretty early around 22:00 or so.  Which was good cause a stupid coke woke me up at 3:00.