May 10 -- Heaven on a rice terrace

I have found a little paradise in the craziness of China. Just two hours north of Guilin is the area known as the "Dragon's Backbone" or Longji Rice Terraces. Wooden buildings and stone pathways that wriggle through the small villages (and these really are small), and thousands of curving rice paddies make this area world famous. The terraces are beautiful -- a real photographer's dream and an amazing feat of farming. Thousands of acres, inaccessible by mechanical tools, have to be tilled and cared for by hand.

The village I chose to visit was Pingan, a traditional Miaow town located half-way up the Dragon's Backbone ridge. The bus let me off in a parking lot where I was, or course, immediately bombarded with people wanting to take me to their guesthouse and wanting to carry my bags. Only this time, the touts were all women in their 40s or 50s, about four-feet tall. After negotiating with one woman for a bed for only 20 Yuan ($2.50), I agreed to let another woman haul my knapsack in her wicker basket, which she carried on her back, although I was a little worried since the knapsack was about as big as she was. It was amazing to see her make her way up the steep stone path from the parking lot wearing what looked like cloth slippers on her feet. It was only about a 15-minute haul but even with just my small daypack, I was soaked in sweat.

Being low season, I was the only one in the guesthouse, which was a wonderfully smelling two-storey wooden building overlooking the terraces. Not wanting to miss the sunset on the fields, I headed out as soon as my bags were put down. From the village to the top of the terraces is about a 300-metre elevation gain and the winding stone path brought one gorgeous view after another. Every now and then I passed a farmer defying gravity with bundles of wood slung across his shoulders, or a woman hunched over under the weight of trays of vegetables carefully balance at either end of a wooden pole bouncing ont he back of her neck.

The trails to two stunning views start in the village and go up... up... up... They are marked at the beginning but not well marked after that so you have to sort of feel your way. And, of course, you head out on the "#1 viewing spot" trail and after about 500 metres come to a sign that points to " #1 viewing spot" back the way you came, with "#2 viewing spot" dead ahead. I have no idea if I even got to the designated spots but I went up until there was no more up to go. And, given that, at one of the uppest ups, there was a guy sitting under a tent selling juice, I figured I had reached a viewing spot. Because, as we know, nothing marks a special tourist location better than a roadside vendor.

The next morning, I went to a different viewing spot, or at least in a different direction, and realized I had only seen a fraction of the magnificent area. There are numerous little villages in different parts of the terraces affording different views. But my legs were tired of doing stairmaster trails and, there being no banks in Pingan, I had to head back to Guilin.

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