The Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces
Summary
Just to the north of Guilin are the rice terraces so wonderfully named the Dragon’s Backbone. The highlight is the view over them from the Nine Dragons and Five Tigers viewing point, but the surrounding area itself with its stilt house villages and sharp river valleys are also beautiful
This is very short entry as we ended up simply taking a day tour from Guilin rather than adventuring ourselves, but I would highlight this a must-do if travelling through this part of China and should be linked up with a boat ride down the Li River through the spectacular scenery south of Guilin – for more tips on this experience see the entry for Drifting down to Li River and cycling in Yangshou
My extra tip, and something I wish we’d done, is the 4 hour trek from the village of Dazhai to Pingan. The area around here really is beautiful so would make a great hike. Plus you’d quickly get away from the crowds which, this being China, are fairly consistent
highlights
#1 The wonderful views of the rice terraces from the Nine Dragons and Five Tigers viewing point
#2 Spending some time wandering through the pretty hill-top villages
#3 Tucking into some of the local delicacies
Some broad tips for travelling in China
- China is vast – both in terms of its sheer land area, population, economy, but also its history and culture. You could spend a lifetime travelling China and still only scrape the surface. Very much like a continent on its own and, in recommending a book to read or movie to watch, it’s a bit like recommending a book to read on “Europe”. However, I did find that the book Wild Swans by Jung Chang, gave me good context on modern Chinese history. The book tells the true story of 3 generations of women living in China from 1909 to modern day and I’d highly recommend
- The Chinese people – it’s often difficult to interact with locals in China – there are certainly strong cultural differences that go deeper than you would experience in most other parts of the world, but the main problem is of course the language. Get out google translate for simultaneous translation. You’ll be surprised how keen the locals will be to speak to you, and just how interesting you may find their stories
- Frustrations – travelling in China can often be difficult . . . scream-out-loud, pull-all-your-hair-out, call everyone a c**t, never-ever-going-back style difficult. The language barrier, the often radically different way of doing things, the combo of an often world leading digital country mixed in with archaically manual processes can all make it feel at times like a challenge rather than a joy. I lived in China for 2 years and experienced a lot of these frustrations. My advice is simply to go with it, its all part of the adventure, and above all don’t lose your temper. Shouting at someone or generally showing frustration will just be viewed by the Chinese as embarrassing and, at worst, a loss of face for them, which means you’ve got very little chance of them helping you. Patience, politeness and a smile will often see them wanting to help you. They’re not trying to be difficult . . . most of the time 🙂
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Beautiful Mountain Scenery
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone