"TUESDAY 15th May
We were up very early today so that we could do our 4 to 5 hours trek through the Longji Rice Terraces. We managed to set off by 07.00 so that we would miss the midday heat of the Sun. It was an amazing trek, it was hard work at times though (with six steep hills to climb up), but definitely worth the views! Construction was started on the terraces 700 years ago and they were only finished in the early 1900s. It's just amazing to think and see that people do climb the hills every day to get to the terraces and other villages. It's such hard work, as most of the terraces aren't large enough to get an ox in, so they have to be farmed by hand - back breaking working we can assure you! The views were just spectacular looking over the vast areas that have been cultivated and seeing the Sun reflecting off of the flooded paddies. We finally made it to Dazai around 12.00! We had a banquet lunch and then spent the afternoon and evening watching DVDs and playing cards! Some people, including Steve, were not being lazy bones and decided to go to a couple of the view points near to the hotel we stayed at and so went for another hour of trekking!"
The Yao minority people farm the region along with Zhuang, the Yao women are well know for having some of the longest hair in the world (and they don't mind asking for it to be photographed in return for some Yuan!).
Farming these Rice terraces isn't easy (the minorities people were effectively "pushed" up the mountains so that the Han people could get the productive valleys) and with no roads a simple task like changing this broken electrical transformer after a power cut involves a lot of people power!
During our trek we were invited inside one of farmers houses to see what it was like, the place was very sparsely decorated to say the least but it was still interesting to see who's portrait they had on the wall.
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