Day 16-18, Lonji Rice Terraces

Our trip to the Rice Terraces was a bit crazy as we boarded a very old rickety bus and headed up a very steep hill, meeting some very bizzare road works on the way!! We eventually made it to our starting point, a village in the middle of know-where!! Our guide Sam then told us we could get to our Guesthouse by one of two routes, first the easy one which takes about 20 mins and the second a 45 min trek! Being crazy as we are, we all opted for the longer of the two and as the rain started to fall we set off in search of our guesthouse! As it was so foggy we couldn't see a thing so trudged on soaking we and finally arrive just as it turned dark at our wood cabin guesthouse in a very small village. After drying off and warming up by the fire (as there was no heating!) we had a very lovely dinner
and Dave along with some of the others settled down to watch Borat the movie. Myself and Helen sat around the fire keeping warm and chatting!!

The second day in the rice terraces started early as we had a 5 hour trek ahead of us! We all wrapped up ready to try and keep the rain out but luckily the rain decreased as the day went on. As the skies cleared we got some spectacular views over the rice terraces and even bumped into a donkey on the narrow paths on the way!! The walk was quite treterous in places and after watching Lloyd fall over into a ditch twice in the space of two mins I had my first fall cracking my elbow on a rock! Luckily though nothing as broken and we carried on eventually arriving in the village of Ping'an. As it was only afternoon we had lunch and settled down in front of the fire to watch Hostage! The even entertainment was brought to us by the local women in the form of a minortiy performance, however the best part was when it was audience participation time!! Dave got picked as the bride in a dance and had to pick his groom! As he was blindfolded he ended up picking Cat and they had a traditional chinese wedding which involved a piggy back ride for Cat, a very bad performance of jingle bells and them drinking some very potent wine!! Very amusing for the rest of us who all just watch and laughed!! However Dave is hoping it isn't legally binding the UK!!

The final day in the rice terrace was a fairly quite one, we had the morning to ourselves which we used to walk around the village. We then headed down out of the village after lunch to the bus pick up point to head back to Guillin train station. We had a few hours to pass before our train ride to HongKong which spend in Mac Donalds eating a 'good' meal before the long train journey and walking round the city!! We headed back to the train station to board our final over night train to HongKong.