The Chronicles of Yangshuo: The Voyage to the Rice Terraces

The morning of our rice terrace tour started early.  The bus came to pick us up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, at 7:10 am.  Whew!  Since it was a 3 hour ride there, we had to start super early.

Most of the bus ride was uneventful. We started out in a van where Soren was too tall to see out the windows, but fortunately we were transferred to a GIANT bus for the duration of our trip.  About 2 hours later, we got off our bus and onto a "public" bus to take us up the mountain.

Now, let me just say something here.  If you're going to have a safety railing installed to save vehicles from plummeting off the road and down a cliff, you should probably make that railing tall enough to save every variety of vehicle that uses the road.  As we wound up and around the mountains to the top,  I got the impression that, had we started to tip off the road, those small safety railings would have done nothing to prevent our bus from tumbling to the bottom.  And that would have been quite the fall.

It was a terrifying drive, especially for Soren who is afraid of heights.  I'm not particularly scared of heights, but the thought of falling 1000 feet to my death doesn't exactly make me giddy.  Also, the windiness of the road was starting to make me a tad carsick (and by a tad, I mean "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, get me off this bus.") 

We got to the top in one peace, and we all managed to maintain our composure.  After getting off the bus, we followed our tour guide through a charming village to our lunch destination.  For lunch, I ordered "Bamboo rice." I wasn't sure what to expect, but I figured you can't go too wrong with rice.  As it turns out, "Bamboo rice" is rice that's cooked inside bamboo!  It had a very fun taste and texture.  Soren ordered Kung Pow Chicken, but had to change to Kung Pow Pork because they said they were out of chicken.  Kind of hard to believe when we saw chickens walking all over that villiage....ah well.

My Bamboo Rice

The amazing thing about this village was that it was built on a hill.  It doesn't matter where you're going, or who you're visiting, you will be climbing stairs.  The people who live there are super strong.  I couldn't help but applaud the 70 year old women carrying a giant basket full of stuff up one of the stone staircases.  She smiled at me and probably thought to herself, "Look at that poor, sweaty white girl, huffing and puffing like she's going to die.  Don't feel bad about yourself, this is only easy for me because I do it twelve times a day."

To that I say, "Nice try Chinese lady.  I'm sure you do this thirteen times a day."

One staircase that was particularly fun had a little stream running under it.  We took about a billion pictures, but none of them really do it justice.

Soren and our favorite staircase

Once we got out of the village, we were able to see the rice terraces.  OH MY WORD!  SO BEAUTIFUL.  I'm going to be honest here...I wasn't really sure about the whole "rice terraces" thing.  I mean,  rice terraces? Really?  How could it be that cool? 

For realz peeps...it was that cool.

Wow...I promise never to use the word "realz" or "peeps" again. Let's just pretend that never happened.

I'm so embarrassed. Oh look!  Rice terraces...

This picture is worth clicking on so you can see it bigger.  Do it...

What are those two people doing in my picture?  They sure are attractive, though.

After the rice terraces, we hiked back down, and got back on the public bus.  I think the drive down the mountain was less scary than up it...but that may only be because it felt shorter.  I don't know...still pretty terrifying. 

Our next destination was the Long Hair village.  Women in this village have...you guessed it...very long hair.  But that wasn't the cool part, the cool part, was how they do their hair.  How you do your hair shows your situation in life.  Unmarried girls cover their hair.  Married women with no children do their hair one way, and married women with kids do their hair with a big o' knot on their forehead.  We got to see a 45 minutes show in that village, but we were warned that if we drank the tea there, we had to stir it with one chopstick.  If you stirred the tea with two chopsticks you would have to stay the night in the village.

The women doing their hair

Another tradition in that village is that they pinch your bum as you leave.  That was fun.  Very friendly.

The ride back was a little uncomfortable because we were in a tiny van.  Poor Soren didn't really have a backrest, and Krista's seat was soaking wet.  But taking the van was going to be faster than the bus, so it ended up being worth it.

That evening we walked around Yangshuo, bought a few things, and ate.  Nothing too noteworthy.  Oh, and we went to the kissing fish spa. 

The KISSING FISH SPA!  What am I talking about?  That's super noteworthy.  So you sit with your feet in a tank of fish, and they eat all the dead skin off you feet.  Tickles like crazy.
Krista, Jenna, and Soren were the first brave ones to try it.

Although I said I was too ticklish, I did end up doing it. It was so fun but it tickled so much!  Imagine dozens of tiny little mouths sucking on your feet: in-between your toes, around your cuticles, and everywhere else.  Our feet were super smooth afterwards!

The fish attaching my ankles

My "I'm being tickled" face.

  The only thing we didn't like about the kissing fish spa was having to put back on our gross shoes and socks afterward.