Dragon Tales 3

Further Up The Hills

As I was packing this morning, it was exercise time at the school. Loud music bellowed from the PA, accompanied by a woman calling out in rhythm. The kids (and the teachers) did their routine, all together.

People keep fit here. Every evening loads of people briskly walk around, or exercise in the public parks to music, often in groups, or even just swing their arms and stretch as they walk along the street.

Brekky noodle wallah

Why pull out the old motor when you can just chuck in a new one up front?

It was foggy till early afternoon, visibility was pretty low early on, which is fine because my visibility is pretty low most of the time anyway.

I passed through some cute small towns

Hani Culture and Rice Cultivation

I stopped at a big information centre, which had some great pics and info about this World Heritage-listed region. Some of the pics here are from displays at the centre.

The people here have been irrigating and cultivating this land continuously for over 1,300 years. That's a lot. It's not the oldest continuous rice farming in  the world, that's in Ifuego, in Luzon in the Philippines, which I visited once upon a time.

I found an old pic of mine of the Filipino terracing style. It's magnificent, but quite different to here.

As in the Philippines, the culture here is so rich. Traditionally, the people here were animists, and some of their animist worship practices remain.

Lozue dance

The headdresses are very important, and designate marital status, family group, and other important information. The women take great pride in them, and they're often adorned with beautiful silver. I've seen the most incredible and elaborate ones over the past couple of days, they're really stunning.

I've seen a bunch of kids wearing these cool hats. I want one.

Lo Meo and Zhu Lie

The rice cultivation and layering itself is amazing. Some of the mountains have 3,700 layers of terracing from top to bottom, over an elevation of over 1,300m.

The mist was still around as I headed up. This is another traditional Hani building, with thatched roof.

I bought some bananas from this lovely woman. Then I took a few pics, and as I was leaving she came over and gave me a second bunch of bananas. What a gal! I especially love the hat combo.

Camper vans! Yep, I've met some Chinese nationals who are travelling long distances around their huge country in big campers like these. This is an overnight stop for them, with electric charging station for EVs and other batteries.

The fog slowly lifted.

The calf blinked first. And dribbled a lot.

I descended down into the town of Shengcun to have a look. There was a market on. I bought some steamed peanuts and locally baked goodies.

The paste is tamarind, it was divine.

It's horse country again. Mountainous areas often are. I mean look at the Man From Snowy River, for example. There's lots of asses gettin around here too.

Touring Hani Terraced Fields, Healing Homesickness on the White Clouds.

It worked!

Close to Pugaolao. I found myself a little hostel to stay. I got a dorm bed, but so far I'm in here on my own.

And I've had the most delicious late afternoon and evening. The late afternoon consisted of me eating loads of snacks and then siesta-Ing for about 2 whole hours. I was super tired, from a long, long ascent.

And then it was time for an early dinner, and a stroll through the rice terraces, which are right outside my place.

I'm sure I won't have the time or the juice to try every local beer in China, but I'll give it a real shot.

The sun was setting as I strolled along the stone path into the old town.

The views were amazing

These guys thought they'd duck out too.

Pretty magnificent innit.

I strolled out into the terraces, because I like trashing my shoes.

Rice seedlings

Those hills at the back are about 3,000m up. I'm at about 2,000m here.

My hostel, facing the terraces. If you levitated to the top window on the right and peered in, you'd see me sitting on my pillow on a big wooden chair, typing these words on my iPad.

Then you'd see me scream out in shock and joy at having another beloved visitor come to see me, all these miles away.

The fog rolled in as it got dark.

So there's nothing much to do now but sit around, play guitar, and eat goji berries (with the occasional deadly pip), dried mango, more steamed peanuts, and a monkey's feast of bananas.

What in cosmos did I do to deserve such joy?

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Go to Part 4