SEG 329 - Part 12 in a 16 part series on CHINA
SEGMENT 329
Guilin, China
Long Sheng Rice Terraces
Part 12 in the 16 part series on China
http://GreatGetawaysOfTheWorld.blogspot.com
Segment 329 takes you to places rarely visited by the tourist buses of China, the Long Sheng Dragon Spine Rice Terraces, just prior to the rice being harvested.
The 2 hour journey through the mountains along the mountain rivers is quite beautiful, and the kind of scenery I always seek out when visiting a country. Airports always are placed in the major cities, but I am one who immediately leaves the bustle behind and seeks the quiet spectacular beauty of nature, and this trip is suited for those who appreciate the same.
Along the way we see villagers harvesting rice and laying it out to dry on their rooftops, flat patio space usable for such purposes. Locals stand in the mountain streams fishing with spears. Small horses loaded with supplies stand at construction sites, working hard for their living.
It is the short breed of horses who do best in mountainous terrain, similar to the burros used in the Americas.
We are enroute to visit one of the minority tribes in China, the Lao, whose women never cut their hair, believing they are honoring their parents and god by keeping what god has given uncut, and believeing they are more beautiful the longer their hair is.
The men have no such constraints, and keep their hair at an easy to care for length for the most part.
I am told that the modern Yao girls now choose whether or not they want to cut their hair or not, but don't see any along the walk up the mountain, where no vehicles can drive, steep steps leading upwards through the villages to a hotel and restaurant where we will be having lunch.
Unfortunately for us, we have not arrived until close to noon, when the sun is reaching it's most fierce state, and even though we are traveling here in September, Guilin is located in the southern part of China, which is almost tropical in weather pattern, hot and humid.
I am carrying a heavy broadcast camera which does not like the heat and humidity, and when my skin is sweating, so is the interior of the camera.
I am attempting to keep the camera shaded, moving from shade bush to shade bush, but both myself and the camera are rapidly heating up.
There are locals who offer a sedan chair ride up the mountain and earn a living doing so, but this is not practical for when one needs to frequently stop and film, and besides, I feel sorry for them having to carry people larger than themselves. 
Some of our tour party have injured ankles and cannot walk very well, so they help to provide the local villagers with some good revenue for the day, and are sped up the hill by natives acclimated to the climate and elevation.
Many beautiful rice terraces stretch out all around us, and the homes all seem comfortable, large, and well made from bamboo, which grows fast like a weed, and is strong enough and easy to build from, and timber.
I create a series on utilizing re-cycled materials to create with, and am happy to see that here in the village of the Yao, they are also using the recycled pieces of marble that I just utilized in one of my own building demonstrations for the series " From the Ground Up", which you may visit at http://TLS-FromTheGroundUp.blogspot.com , the only other place I have seen the marble pieces used.
We can all learn about living well from groups of people who utilize everything, throw nothing away, waste none of their food, or food scraps, know how to use composting toilets, and composting materials to fertilize their fields.
On the journey up to their village I had the very unpleasant experience of stopping at a gas station restroom where human waste lays in troughs of unsightly and overwhelming reek that has everyone in line covering their noses with cloth, tissues, and shuddering from the experience. How simple it would be to utilize a natural composting toilet system instead, like these villagers use, and like the system I am encouraging Americans to remember in the " From the Ground Up" series. Simple composting systems require no water for flushing, utilize leaf, bamboo, timber shavings, garden materials to cover each usage, resulting in no smell, and no unsightly gagging wastage to look at, need not be carried about anywhere else, and in 3 months are fully usable compost. Simple structures to protect a basic hole in the ground from rain can be easily moved once the hole is filled.
We will do well on this planet to remember simple and ancient systems that work and require no expenditure of energy to utilize, but rather provide useful energy, methane, and compost in the process.
Other simple methods of gravity fed water systems, rainwater systems, rainwater cisterns, can provide all water needed, greywater providing moisture to food producing garden terraces.
I am in alignment with the simple, and self-reliant Yao peoples, and hope their simple way of life can spread itself down the mountain from whence we just came.
Our ancestors knew how to utilize well what nature provides, before the days of Power and Electric and Water companies. We would all do well to remember what we all once knew. It can help to save our environment , our budget, our world.
I have much good footage of the beautiful rice terraces by the time we reach the hotel where lunch will be served, and stop here to rest along with several others from the tour group who are suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion.
Here is a great shot from the hotel, which offers simple rooms and cooling showers!
This hike would have been best at dawns early light, and overnighting in the hotel to take advantage of this timing would be a good idea for a future tour of the area.
Outdoor showers would also be a nice touch, utilizing the flowing mountain stream which pops out along the trail in water spout areas. Certainly those tourists who try climbing in the heat of day would appreciate wearing their bathing suits and stopping to shower off, changing out of their sweat soaked clothing into fresh outfits prior to sitting down at the restaurant to lunch, and such a feature would be very easy to create, and another source of potential income for the village at 50 cents a shot. No hotel rooms are required for such. 
The path up to the restaurant offers many small shops which sell handmade hats, a big seller here to protect from the heat, and other small arts, crafts, and souveneirs, but nothing sold as well as the sun hats.
For those able, another thirty minutes of walking brings one to the very crown of the mountain top where more spectacular vistas of the entire area stretch out, but for myself, greatly overheated in the intense heat, and for my camera, now flashing warning signals of condensation detected, I must take the shade and fan the camera back down to a drier and cooler state.
Here is a shot from the top of the mountain, provided by Brian Wesley Roberts
This is a stop well worth making, and tourism will bring some much needed revenues and influences into this beautiful mountain village, where if next I travel, will be in a cooler time of day, or year, having a handy hotel to overnight in midway up the mountain.
But alas, we are on a tight touring schedule with buses and airplanes to catch, and must leave this to another time and day.
Fortunately, the shade and rest and cool mountain water, has brought all the other travelors temperatures and red faces back to a walkable descent , always easier than the way up, and none have suffered fatal damage, including the Broadcast Camera, thankfully.
Guilin has come as a surprise to me, being so tropical, warm, and humid, and bathing suits and tropical clothing is certainly the norm here.
The segment is completed with a visit to the famous Elephant Rock, the symbol of the city, a walk through it's park, and several views of Buddist Pagodas on the mountain sides.
We return to our accommodations, The Guilin Park Hotel, situated on the edge of a lake and lit up like Christmas at night, making it the most beautiful setting of our hotels so far, even though not the newest. Good Wind and Water as the Chinese would say.
I am a water dragon, so I especially love water, and am delighted to find a wonderful, warm pool to swim away my troubles in this evening.
You may find more information on-line at
www.parkhil.com
Airing Schedule for
SEGMENT 329
Part 12 in the 16 part series on China
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
5:30 p.m. news primetime
and again at
2:00 a.m.
when all other programming goes off the air.
Friday, January 16th, 2009
5:30 p.m. news primetime
and again at
2:00 a.m.
when all other programming goes off the air.
Labels: CHINA - 16 Part Mini-Series - GREAT GETAWAYS
posted by Tamara Lynn Scott @ 11:44 PM
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