Day 97 (Sun 20 Dec): Pugaolao (rice terraces)

The rice terraces of Yuangyang are considered one of the top twenty sights in China. For good reason.

Sunrise started the day, as it is wont to do:

And with the sunrise came buffalo up the steps beside the hostel:

Four main viewpoints round a big loop could be visited by taking local buses between them. We were only there for one day, so decided to do it properly and hired a mini van for the day. Great decision.

Our driver took us to places other tourists don’t reach. Our first stop was a local village:

Complete with communal pool table:

And friendly local people:

To a view of the rice terraces beyond:

… And the mist:

Three minutes later, it looked like this:

Mist moves around this place quickly:

On the way back, Rudy took a photo of a little boy who clearly loved the limelight and proceeded to dance around us, showing off for the camera:

And, unexpectedly, their communal toilets were the best I’ve used in China so far, with a constant flush courtesy of the diverted river. I tried not to think of the rice terraces downstream :/

Whereas the women are generally cool with having their photo taken, the men don’t seem to like it:

But we were as much of a novelty to them as they were to us.

Driving back to the hostel for lunch, I noticed that many of the construction workers were female. Division of work seems to be much more equal here.

Then on to another place to see the rice terraces:

There are many valleys, with terraces flowing down the mountainside, spotted with villages. This one has a corn seller who was drying the corn:

At the next stop, a young girl ran over to Rudy as we got out of the van and stuck a boiled egg into his open pocket. When he smiled his friendly smile, and asked how much it was, another went in. As he was getting some money, a third followed. He took it out and tried to give it back to her, but she was a little businesswoman:

We were making unplanned stops in addition to the itinerary the chap at the hostel had put together, seeing the real side of life. Emerging from another stop, we realised we were just 100m from the official entrance of one of the four viewpoints: not only were we getting the real deal, he was saving us £10pp in entrance fees. What a star. And there was no rush: he’d take some photos (he liked Rudy’s camera so Rudy kindly let him play with it a few times)…

… and then would hang around until we were ready to leave. We stayed ages at the last site, and when we finally got back to the van (he hadn’t walked with us this time), he checked we were ready to leave and off we went. And he was a really good driver, too. We’d decided to tip him nicely, and when we handed over the agreed fee plus the extra, he tried to give his tip back to us! I love the Chinese – they’re so genuine, friendly and kind. I wonder if the lack of western tourists means that these traits haven’t been hidden by the lure of the tourist dollar.

An amazing day, nicely finished off by these lovelies…: