Day Five- Dazhai to Ping’an

Tuesday 19 January 2010


6:30am Watch sunrise from our mountain-top hotel room
8:00am Begin 4 hour hike from Dazhai village to Ping’an (stealing dog along the way)
1:30pm Catch bus to back to Guilin
4:30pm See Guilin in two hours
7:00pm Bus to Yangshuo
9:00pm Walk around Yangshuo at night, eat super yummy peanut-sesame sweet porridge

Kiersten: Yes, we stole a dog. But we didn’t mean too, really! He came quite of his own accord. He belonged to the hotel we had stayed at and as we started out in the morning on our hike to Ping’an, he followed us down the mountain. We didn’t think much of it, figuring that he wandered around there all the time. But he kept going! As we turned off on the path that left the Dazhai area and went through the mountains and rice terraces towards Ping’an, I began to get a little worried. We tried shooing him and stomping our feet at him. But to no avail. He would disappear for a few minutes, then he would either suddenly shoot past us from behind or pop up on the trail ahead. After we had hiked a couple of hours and passed a couple of villages, I began to throw rocks in his direction, hoping to get him to leave. Nope, didn’t work. We finally lost him maybe a half hour from Ping’an. I felt so horrible, worried that he wouldn’t be able to make it back home. But the last we saw him, he had made friends with another village dog so I can only hope that if nothing else, he was able to assimilate into another village. Thus ended our career as dog-snatchers.

Eric: After a three hour hike across the rice terraces and through the Yao village of Zhongliu, we arrived in the Zhuang minority village of Ping’an. I must admit, I much preferred the area of Dazhai to this new valley of terraces. While Ping’an’s rice terraces were beautiful, the views around Dazhai were much more majestic. Ping’an was also much more touristy, which was a sad change from Dazhai’s empty streets during the day and the happy sounds of children playing in the valley below heard from our hotel after nightfall. However, I still enjoyed this new area, and I learned a lot. As we crossed the top level of terraces, we came across a Yao woman who apparently had accepted the tourist atmosphere of her home and was more than eager to let down her long hair for a price of 5 RMB. It is the tradition of Yao women to grow their hair out long and wrap it into a turban style bundle on the top of their head. The larger the bundle, the more beautiful it is considered.

I admit that a picture with her was definitely part of my consideration, but the prospect of conversing with her about her life was what really made me agree to the fee. I didn’t ask her name, but as she undid the braids holding her hair up, I asked many other questions. She was forty years old and had only cut her hair once during her life. That was when she was eighteen. As her hair came down, she showed us three long strands of hair. One was the hair that was on her head. The second was the two foot strand that came off when she was eighteen. The third strand was not hers but added to make her turban wrap appear larger. I asked if it was painful having so much hair on her head. She responded that it was at first, but she has now been long used to it.

Soon after sunrise, in front of our hotel.

We're on our way! And, yes, that is the dog.

A small sampling of what we saw on our hike:










Four hours later...Ping'an!



We only spent two hours in Guilin, and half that time was spent being lost or being accosted by nice Chinese people wanting to practice their English with us, so not many pictures from there...