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Hello! We are so sorry that we haven't had a chance to update our blog for a few days. We are now going to think back over the last few days and update...
So we last wrote on the 18th Feb when we were about to leave Yangshou to go to the Rice Terraces. On the 19th Feb we got up early and had to leave our lovely guesthouse and take a 4 hour bus journey to our next destination via the train station where we had to leave our backpacks for 2 nights so we could treck to our next accommodation! The bus journey was okay - the buses in China remind us of those in Dubai just quite small and cramped really but clean enough. As we left the towns and started to get in to the countryside it was amazing and the bus climbed some pretty steep hills (which were a bit ropey at times and it felt a bit like cliffhanger!!!). It was another foggy day so we couldn't see very far but the views were still amazing.
When the bus stopped we had to prepare ourselves for an hours treck to our guesthouse. The minute we got off the bus loads of local women came running to us and offered to carry our bags for just a few pounds! It was very tempting to just get in their baskets and let them carry us but we politely declined and set off with our lovely (yet vertically challenged) local guide 'Farmer'. It had been raining the previous night so it was quite muddy and we got filty. We walked through a few tiny villages which the local people had built out of wood and were told that some minority tribes lived there which was pretty cool - all the people we saw were dressed in really colourful handmade clothes (except the kids who were decked out in adidas and nike... kind of ruined our illusions really!). Then the steps started and oh my gosh... we got a workout!! They were so incredibly steep and there were so many of them. As we were climbing even higher we actually felt the air thining as we climbed - phew! Farmer promised us that the walk the following day would be even tougher and was greeted with a less than eager response from the group!
When we got to our guesthouse for that evening it was completely up in the mountains and because it was so misty we couldn't see anything (see photos!). So we just had to stay there and eat and read and watch Die Hard (the only English movie there!) until the following day, hoping that the mist would clear and we could actually see where we were!
On the 20th we got up early again and left with Farmer for our 4 hour treck through the rice terraces. This included 4 incredibly steep flights of steps which felt like they went on forever, I struggled a bit but didn't stop (very proud!) and Matt raced up them putting everyone to shame as usual! It was so worth the pain though - what amazing views we had of the rice terraces. Farmer told us about how they farm the rice and amazed us by telling us that each stalk of the rice plant can produce half a kilo of rice!! As it's still winter in China the rice fields weren't as beautiful as they seem to be in the summer but it was still such a great thing to see. The hardest part of the walk was going down - as the rocks were quite slippery from the rain we almost fell a couple of times and it was very steep going down too so a few people pulled a few muscles trying to do so. But we really enjoyed the exercise and loved walking through the fields with not another person in sight!
After 4 hours of pretty much non-stop walking and "oohing" and "aaahing" we ended up at a village where we were to stay for the next night. The village was pretty amazing - again, built in the middle of the rice terraces and surrounded by the fields and mountains it was like something out of a film. The locals were busy building a house our of wood when we arrived and had also just slaughtered a pig and were burning the skin off with a blow torch (I didn't look but Matt filmed it with the camcorder!). We arrived at our guesthouse exhausted and covered in mud. Again it was entirely built out of wood and pretty basic but once we warmed the bedroom up we were fine. That evening we had dinner in the restaurant downstairs and sat around the fire with some of the other people in our group who we have really come to like and sat up late laughing and talking ready for our final overnight train the following day!!!
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