The Dragon Backbone

Ping'an
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We arrived in Longsheng on Friday evening at about 6pm.  Longsheng is a town built in the mountains, complete with a bridge in the middle arching over a mountain river.  The people were so friendly, straight away 2 ladies ran up to the bus to ask us to stay at their hostel, but we showed them which one we wanted to stay at, so they called us a moto and made sure the driver didn't cheat us.  So nice.  Apart from the mosquitoes and cockroaches, Longsheng is a really nice place.  We dropped our bags off at a hostel and headed down under the bridge through the markets to find some dinner.  Big mistake, the markets (being underground) smelt like Chinese toilets and we lost our appetites straight away.  Headed back out into fresh air to find a small 'point at the food-they cook it' restaurant'.  Found there was nothing really to do in Longsheng at night and though we had a TV in the room, we still can't understand the Chinese language, so headed out to an internet cafe.

Little enterprising local made us pay 6 yuan for taking this photo.
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Next day we heaped ourselves onto a local minibus which then headed up the winding road to the village of Ping'an, which is situated alongside the Dragon's Backbone, a series of hills covered with rice paddies.  There were 5 Chinese students on the bus who are studying languages at uni, so we had a nice chat to them along the way.  Even though Ping'an is only 20 kms away, it took an hour and a half to get there.  Once we did, we had to dump our backpack somewhere.  The man in the ticket box said we couldn't leave it with him, we asked why, he said "I don't know".  So we went into a bus waiting room and secretly locked it to a table a guard was sitting next to and then ran out before he could stop us.  We did the half hour hike up the hills to Ping'an, it was amazing.  The village is built all over the hills, next to the rice paddies.  There's hostels and restaurants everywhere, and signs pointing to different view points.  Even though the signs were great, James managed to get us lost still so our 2 hour hike was extended to 3.  It was still great though, the weather was perfect and we met the sister of Lulu, who owns a hostel in Guilin.  We're becoming locals, bumping into friends in distant towns!  We discussed starting a touring company called 'Get Lost in China' since we manage to lose our way pretty much everywhere.  After our arduous hiking, we had pizza for the last time and headed down to get the bus back to Guilin and then the train back to stinky Yongzhou, which is even more stinky now that's it's hot and wet!

Apart from the mosquitoes and cockroaches, Longsheng is a really nice place