Early morning in the Longji Rice Terraces. The fog is thick around the mountainous terraces. A damp chill in the air indicates a wet trek ahead. The green grass of the off-season fields is deeper and more intense thanks to the thick natural fog filters. In the minutes since I've started writing this entry the fog has rolled in to the point of complete opaqueness.
The guesthouse that we're staying at is like the rest in the village and like the others we've stayed at in China. The village is building. The sounds of hammers and saws are epidemic as clean fresh wood is transformed into cloned guesthouses and assumed real houses. Women with long hair spun up in combs work along side the men as this village grows annoyingly. As you'd expect the women do all the other work, hauling, tending of fields, cooking. The fields are sitting fallow, some are plowed. Where the rice fields in Vietnam can produce three crops and the South China fields two, in Longji they get one extremely challenging crop. The terraces are truly massive. The hike to the village went straight up the side, huge slate steps, perspiration, and exhaustion.
Today as the rain begins to fall we discuss the six hour trek planned. The fog is as thick as the packed dense rice in the pressure cooker from last night's dinner. How keen are we for exercise without vista?
Later that day... Quote of the day: "That toilet was the worst, it was absolute spewing shit!" Back at the guesthouse after a grueling, frigid, wet journey. We hiked about three hours in dense fog and occasional drizzle. The views were obscured, but the fog provided an incredible solitude impossible during a normal day. By stopping and holding your breath you could eliminate all noise and visualize the images not present. The fog enhanced mystery and forced creativity without spoon-fed beauty. We stopped for lunch.
Lunch was provided by a family in the village of Zhonglu. A woman intercepted our trekking party on the terrace overlooking her village and led us to a long drawn out lunch. After a burnt batch of rice we waited eating sweet potato fries and nasty, salty, fatty, dried pork. Slowly we assimilated to our lunch and left.
The long trip down the mountain was slippery and eventful. One mishap of the mountain left everyone more cautious and one bloodied and mud covered. A few mishaps later and we arrived at a roadside village of no circumstance except that a potential bus was expected. After an hour and a beer the real fun began. CCV (Cattle Class Vacations) Travel was invented when a cattle truck happened by and fell prey to our negotiating skills. Fifty-five Yuan later and we were headed up the most treacherous stretch of road in all of China. Five in the comfortable and plush front and four in the smelly sheet metal encased back. The four of us that made the grave mistake of roughing it in the back bounced around and surfed on minute chairs as we passed a bottle of 60 proof rice wine between us. As we tested intoxication and bounced off the walls we drowned our agony in laughter... The truck stopped as I sculled the final portion of the nasty rice wine. At that moment an apparent Aussie legend was born. It doesn't take much down under. The three drunk Aussies and one drunk Yankee fell out of the truck and headed up the hill in an Olympic quest for warmth. One more mishap (this one aided by the debilitating effects of rice wine) off the rice terrace and we were there. Thank god. Now I await the hangover and dinner.
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