So last post was pretty much about how frustrated I was with not catching a bus on time for my room reservation and missing out on half my reservation (my numbers were off and I realized later that I had two nights). I have to admit, for a while I looked at the 7 hour sleeper bus ride it was going to take, the time it would take to get back, and the time I had in Yuanyang and asked myself if it was all worth it. I'm happy say it was:
Sunrise from Sunny Guesthouse viewing area.
Initially, these rice terraces formed by the Hani over 1000(?) years ago were the only thing that I knew about, the only big draw I'd heard of, and the only thing I found in a guidebook while wondering if there was something special going on in winter that I should check out. But since I stayed at Sunny Guesthouse in Pugaolao Village and pretty much slept next to the terraces, I found the whole area to be extremely pleasant. Given the nature of the terraces, they can't really industrialize how the red rice is grown and harvested here. I've read travel websites and guidebooks that talk about how great it is that this place is relatively untouched by tourism, but I don't know if it's entirely true when they've built viewing platforms you need to pay to enter. It's true though that since it's not the easiest place to get to, it's not really got a lot of other things going on for tourists. I would totally go back here, maybe even in its off season when the terraces aren't full of water since I really enjoyed my neighbors, a bunch of little girls who were always playing and singing together at all times of the day. One of them showed me to the guesthouse and I wound up giving her both the cakes I had in my bag in exchange for her help and she always smiled at me whenever I walked past.
Maybe I should go back to that first day of arriving. It was the 18th, New Year's Eve. After resting on the bus as best as I could, a man came on with a flashlight asking if anyone was going to DuoYiShu and I said yes. So I walked out at (6? 7?) some dark hour of the morning, loaded up into a minibus with one woman and two men and we set off for DuoYiShu. When we arrived at the viewing area, I asked if he could tell me where the parking lot of Pugaolao Village was. The other man siting up front heard me struggling with my Chinese and he spoke to me in English. We all got out at Pugaolao and they seemed bothered by me traveling alone so they walked with me down a to convenience store that a local man had set up in his house. The man called a friend who spoke English and had me talk to him, the woman who traveled with us stared and said "You don't understand?" as she tried to work out my nationality and my appearance. So the man who ran the shop walked me partway before asking a woman with a big-eyed baby to help me out, she walked me partway then asked a little girl to help me out and she got me to the guesthouse. Dante had Virgil and Beatrice, but I got 4 guides on my journey through what felt like paradise despite how tired I was. Cool, clean morning air, sun already risen over the terraces, roads with water running down the gutters everywhere and taking advantage of the mountain that this village is built on, little girls in traditional Hani tunics, blue sky, and all of it more than welcome after the time I've spent in cold and wet Hunan. The change in the air was the first thing I noticed as the bus came up the mountain since I couldn't see much outside my window at night.
Maybe I should go back to that first day of arriving. It was the 18th, New Year's Eve. After resting on the bus as best as I could, a man came on with a flashlight asking if anyone was going to DuoYiShu and I said yes. So I walked out at (6? 7?) some dark hour of the morning, loaded up into a minibus with one woman and two men and we set off for DuoYiShu. When we arrived at the viewing area, I asked if he could tell me where the parking lot of Pugaolao Village was. The other man siting up front heard me struggling with my Chinese and he spoke to me in English. We all got out at Pugaolao and they seemed bothered by me traveling alone so they walked with me down a to convenience store that a local man had set up in his house. The man called a friend who spoke English and had me talk to him, the woman who traveled with us stared and said "You don't understand?" as she tried to work out my nationality and my appearance. So the man who ran the shop walked me partway before asking a woman with a big-eyed baby to help me out, she walked me partway then asked a little girl to help me out and she got me to the guesthouse. Dante had Virgil and Beatrice, but I got 4 guides on my journey through what felt like paradise despite how tired I was. Cool, clean morning air, sun already risen over the terraces, roads with water running down the gutters everywhere and taking advantage of the mountain that this village is built on, little girls in traditional Hani tunics, blue sky, and all of it more than welcome after the time I've spent in cold and wet Hunan. The change in the air was the first thing I noticed as the bus came up the mountain since I couldn't see much outside my window at night.
RSS Feed
