Longsheng & Ping'An

We left Yangshuo on Saturday morning and hopped on a bus to Guilin where we planned to transfer to a bus to Longsheng. We left our big bags in our Sunday night hotel in Guilin and just brought a backpack and Audrey's backpack carrier up to Longsheng. Longsheng is about a 2 hour bus ride from Guilin, up smallish, somewhat windy, rockslide prone (but paved!) roads. The bus was your standard nice coach bus that you would find anywhere, complete with air conditioning and bottled water. On the way up we sat in the front seats so we would have a clear view of our surroundings. That was a mistake. The bus driver did the usual passing on the left side of a double yellow line, up blind curvy mountain roads. But hey, at least he blared his horn the whole time so if anyone was actually coming around the curve, they might figure out that they should be driving in their ditch. Needless to say, on the way back down from Longsheng the next day, we chose to sit in the very back and were happily oblivious to any potential perils. :) We intended to stay Saturday night in Ping'An, the small minority village 1 hour outside of Longsheng, in a hotel recommended by Tim & Laurel. But because one of the potential scams we sort of fell for in Guilin (more on that later), we were told they had no rooms and were rerouted to a 5-star 'resort-y' hotel near Longsheng. We then just planned to head up to the village first thing Sunday morning, spend the day there, then head back down to Guilin. We arrived in the odd little bus 'station' (again, little more than a back alley parking lot), and tried to find someone who could tell us where this hotel was at. We asked some women on the street and gathered that the hotel was not walking distance, but they pointed us in the right direction. We approached a 'taxi' (no taxi cars in Longsheng, just bicycle or motorcycle cabs with a little truck bed on back) and he said it would be 50RMB to get there. We were just coming off of a few cabbie scammers in Guilin (again, more later), so we naturally assumed 50RMB (just over $7) was a rip-off. (While in Shanghai, we took an hour cab ride to the airport for $14) We found the Longsheng Hotel near the bus station, went in there to inquire where this resort-y hotel was and found out it was 30 minutes away. Since we wanted to hop a 7:40 am bus up to Ping'An, we just booked a room at the Longsheng Hotel, not quite realizing exactly what a 2-star rated Chinese hotel was like. It was ok. We chose not the use the moldy shower, and opted out of the basket of condoms and oils they had for sale on the dresser. At least there were no bugs or weird stains to contend with. The bed was basically just a boxspring, but it was only $19. We walked around town looking for a restaurant and ended up back at the hotel restaurant. The food tasted fine, but reared it's ugly head a few hours later. All 3 of us suffered a bit of icky tummy, but Joe's hung on for a few days, while Audrey and I suffered a bit and then were done. At the restaurant, the staff oogled at Audrey and one waitress even came over to us, snatched Audrey out of her chair and literally ran off with her to the back room giggling. Joe about jumped out of his skin and chair, but I reassured him that they meant no hard and that we could hear Audrey laughing. It turns out, they wanted to show her the fish tanks where dinner was swimming and we think were even letting her hold some fish. She was stoked, Joe, not so much.
(The next morning, we are pretty sure we saw/ heard a funeral procession going past our hotel. It was a line of people walking down the street with white head scarves on, with one man letting off fire crackers and a few others carrying a covered stretcher. Later, on our bus, we noticed the same people 30 minutes outside of town with incense burning, candles and flags next to the body, while a mourner squatted next to the deceased. Interesting.)
On Sunday morning, we just made our van up to Ping'An. At the first stop, a man and his 2 bags of live chickens got on. (The chickens went on the roof). A few minutes later, a woman and her large basket full of copies of the daily paper got on. The next stop- a man and his 3-4 large bags of vegetables. Joe and I smiled because this was so classic. And later, someone boarded with his repaired generator. For 7RMB ($1), the 1 hour shuttle is a pretty good deal.
We made it up to a foggy Ping'An (btw, it costs 50RMB to enter the village) with hopes the fog woul soon lift. Quite to opposite happened and it actually got worse throughout the day! We headed up the hill, and started hiking up the path into the rice terraces. A little ways up, 3 Yao women (one of the main minorities there) were standing there waiting to help us. I can only assume they had been watching us the whole time as we made our way toward them. I had read about them and we were prepared to be asked for money for services they would provide, like carry bags/ babies. One fun thing they do for money- they will let down their long hair, wind it back up on their heads and let you take photos with them. Basically, their story is this. When the women hit major milestones in their lives, they cut their hair or alter the shape and location of the bun on their head. We have photos and will post later, but this is getting to be a long entry so I won't go into great detail here. It's 10RMB per lady ($1.30ish) and it's a neat slice of the local culture. One funny thing, as we were standing there in the sprinkling rain watching the letting of the hair ceremony, an elderly woman appeared out of nowhere really from the back of this strategically placed lean-to. She sang a song and the other ladies joined in. It was all very cool, but later when we were paying the Pink Yao Ladies their 30RMB, we were informed that the singer should be paid for her song too. So Joe gave her a 5 and we tried to move on. Now, the Pink ladies wanted to help lead the way, but we couldn't figure out how much this was going to set us back and we really just wanted to walk at our own pace. They do not know how to take no for an answer and insisted on leading us to the next viewpoint. After many attempts to tell them no, we just gave in and let them lead. They brought us to a nice covered sitting area (still sprinkling and getting foggier at this point) where they proceeded to pull out all of their wares to sell us. They had bracelets, bags, embroidery, aprons, wall-hangings, etc... and the funny thing was they knew exactly which one of us to try and sell to- Audrey! They had her covered is stuff and she was flapping her jingle braceleted arms all over the place. It was quite entertaining really and we left with a bracelet and purse for Audrey for about $3. They relentlessly let us walk on by ourselves, for the time being. We walked and it started to rain harder and the visibility dropped to about 20 feet at best! We decided that we should just head back down and catch the 1:00 van down (the next one wasn't until 3). We were following the map they provided with the ticket purchase, but this map differed from the maps they had stamped into stone along the pathways. We had no idea which way to go, plus it was getting muddier and foggier by the minute. And who should we stumble upon, but a group of Pink (they wore pink shirts) Yao ladies talking and sewing! We tried to ask directions, but got mixed answers. We realized that one of the women was trying to get us to stay, eat dinner and have them be our tour guides. One woman though seemed to respect the idea that we really just needed to get Audrey out of the damp, muddy conditions and showed us the way down. We walked through their village, past houses, restaurants and a school. We made our van by about 5 minutes, caught the bus in Longsheng (which is when Audrey and I used the trough toilet) and made it to guilin later that afternoon. Even though our time spent in Ping'An was not what we were planning or hoping for, Joe reminded me that it was quite an adventure and one we likely would not forget.