Longji Terraced Rice Fields

The Longji Terraced Rice Fields have been a visitors' favorite and one of the must-see sites for any Guilin tour due to its unique beauty. It is a stunning location populated with Chinese Ethnic Minority Groups. The Zhuang, Dong, and Yao Minority Groups live in the area and their ancient cultures have taken on aspects of the other groups' traditions, making it a truly unique place.
Thousands of years ago, members of the Zhuang Dong, and Yao Minority Groups fled up into the mountains to avoid persecution. Being agrarian societies, and knowing no other way of life, they turned the mountains themselves into fields. The entire mountain range, which is quite large, has been turned into terraced fields, making it one of the most picturesque places on earth.
In June of 2011, a new section of the mountain range has been opened to the public and http://www.accesschinatravel.com/ was invited for the opening ceremonies. It has existed for thousands of years, but had no large road leading into the area, so few visitors have ever made it there. A new road has been built up the mountain to reach the area and open it to visitors. Access China Travel was there for the opening ceremony. It was overcast and rainy, but that in no way dampened our spirits, because the rain and low hanging clouds added so much beauty to the site. I have found that no matter what the season or weather, every visit to Longji seems to be more beautiful than the one before. The fields still did not have rice in them yet, so each one looked like a mirror reflecting the clouds. It really added to the atmosphere.

The newly opened section has a single large village located on the mountainside. Because it was built on the mountainside, each house was built at a different level with a labyrinth of paths, stairs, and ramps between them. The ancient houses with their grey tile roofs seem to be a part of the mountain. The village was really wonderful. The locals were all of the Zhuang Ethnic Minority and most of them wore their traditional clothing. There were children running around and the little shops were a lot of fun to look into. The locals were very friendly and always said “Nihao” as I passed by. The houses were made entirely of wood and no metal fasteners were used in their construction. They were held together by gravity and by tongue and groove construction. A couple of houses were being built and it was very interesting to see their skeletons. The ground floor was for storage and livestock. The second floor was where the activity and storage rooms were, and the third floor held the bedrooms. The main room of the house, where the family cooked and spent their time was centered on an open hearth. It was a large stone inlaid into the floor, where fires were lit. The food was cooked over the fire in woks sitting on stands that held them over the fire. Above the fire was a large basket which was used to catch the smoke to keep the soot from turning the whole house black.
Exploring the village was a lot of fun. Vital to every Chinese village is a water source, and this village’s is in the form of a stream that flows down the mountain from a natural spring. It flowed under, around, and through houses. The water is used for cooking, bathing, cleaning, and also to power water wheels which were used to power many different wooden machines. The water powered machines were really cool. I saw two in operation. One was a grinding wheel which was used to grind rice. The other machine pounded rice. The grinding wheel worked off of wooden gears which were connected to a water wheel. The machine to pound the rice into a paste was a lever. One end had a head to smash the rice and the other end had a carved out area to catch water. Water would fill the one end and it would cause the head to rise until the water ran out and then the head would fall.
After exploring the village, we ate dinner in a large building. The food was simple, yet truly delicious. All the ingredients were grown right in the village. After we finished eating, we headed back to the main entrance gate by passing through the rice fields. The fields are really works of art. Each rice field is flooded with water for much of the growing season and the water is kept in each one by a retaining wall built of mud. Each retaining wall has a notch in it to allow water to flow down into the next field, making little waterfalls all over the mountain. The fields, traditionally, were plowed by ox, unless the family could not afford one. Then the fields were plowed by the farmer and his wife. The wife would pull the plow while the man pushed. They had a pole between them which the man pushed on to help his wife pull the plow. We saw this being demonstrated. Now, many farmers use gasoline powered machines to pull their plows. When a field did not connect to a lower one, a primitive aqueduct was made of bamboo. A length of bamboo would be split down the middle, then the internal dividers would be chiseled out and this would be used to channel water from one field to another.
Longji’s beauty is indescribable. It really has to be seen to be fully appreciated. The terraced rice fields look incredible no matter which season they are visited during. Each one is more beautiful than the last. They should be added to any Guilin Tour.

To see more photos of the Longji Terraced Rice Fields:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62438483@N02/sets/72157626958892898/

The Liu Sanjie Tea Plantation

In Guilin there is a tea plantation named Liu Sanjie Tea Plantation. It is located between Guilin and the Longji Rice Terraces. We wanted to visit it and see if it was worth adding to our itineraries, so all of us at http://www.accesschinatravel.com/ spent an afternoon there. It certainly was a lot of fun and very beautiful. They produce mainly green teas and have a little tea shop where you can sample them.

The entrance to the plantation is quite impressive. It has a couple of traditional style Chinese buildings which are backed up to a hill. There is a stone gate which leads to a path up the hill which has a gigantic teapot pouring water. There are tea trees on the hill. near the top of the hill is a little pavilion where people can stop to have some tea. From the top of the hill you can look over the plantation and the millions of tea trees it has. The guide will describe a bit about Chinese tea and the varities produced. You then continue along the path past tea trees and tea pavilions.

You then come upon a round hill that is topped with a pavilion for frying the freshly picked tea leaves. Frying is one of the first step of processing Chinese tea. We then walked around the plantation taking photos. It really is a beautiful place. After taking photos for a while, we went back down to the entrance to try their teas in their little shop. It was nice to relax a bit after hiking around the plantation.

To See more photos of the Liu Sanjie Tea Plantation,

visit our Flickr photo album.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/62438483@N02/sets/72157626660038013/

Guilin's Seven Star Park

Seven Star Park in Guilin is a really great place to spend a few hours. It is Guilin's largest park and has a little bit of everything. We enjoy visiting the park and the marketing department at http://www.accesschinatravel decided to go there for an afternoon. It is a lot of fun.

The park got its name from the seven mountain peaks located inside of it. The peaks, it is said, are in the same shape as the Big Dipper constellation. I am not sure if that is true or not, but it is a nice story. The park is bordered by the mountains, making it quite beautiful. The mountains are full of caves and covered with trees and bamboos. There are paths up the mountains with pavilions scattered here and there. It is a lot of fun to sit in one of the pavilions and enjoy the views of the park and of Guilin. We like to bring a picnic and have it in one of the pavilions.


The park is dotted with places of interest. There is a very large Buddhist Temple built in the style of the Tang Dynasty, and a mosque. A children's area is located in the park where children can ride the rides and play games. There is also a zoo and a large waterfall area. The park is large and offers visitors a lot of places to sit and just enjoy the beautiful scenery. There are a lot of areas of historical interest too. One section of the park is filled with stone lions stele, and ancient stone gates that have been excavated from throughout Guilin. There also a cave that is filled with ancient calligraphy and carvings in the rock.


Living in the park are several monkey families and the have free reign in the park and can often be found on the fringes enjoying snacks thrown to them from visitors. They are not tame, so should not be approached too closely. Even so, they are a lot of fun to watch and you never know, when strolling down a path when you will come across one and it is a lot of fun.

To see our photo album of Seven Star Park click here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/62438483@N02/sets/72157626623701289/

Yangshuo Tour

In May of 2011, Access China Travel’s marketing department went to Yangshuo for a day. Located south of Guilin, Yangshuo has become famous as a traveler’s paradise. Its scenery is some of the most beautiful on earth and its traveler’s amenities are fantastic. It really has something for everybody. We decided to go to visit a new culinary school, have a day away from the office to blow off steam, and get some more photos for our website; http://www.accesschinatravel.com/. We had a lot of fun, as we always do, in Yangshuo.

Most people, when going from Guilin to Yangshuo, take the Li River Cruise. The cruise takes people past some of the most spectacular scenery in Yangshuo. We have all taken the cruise many times, and wanted to arrive a bit quicker, so we took a tour bus to Yangshuo. We arrived just before lunch, so we decided to stop for lunch before we started visiting sites.

We decided to take a tour of the Yangshuo countryside via small tour vans that can be rented. The countryside in Yangshuo is really stunning! The karst mountains that have made it famous are breathtaking and those mountains are surrounded by picturesque rice fields, bamboo groves, ancient villages, and water buffalo. It is really a magical place and one could easy spend an entire day just traveling around the countryside enjoying the beauty that surrounds you. The touring van is a great relaxing way to see it. On the way, the van stopped at an ancient house. The house was very interesting. The house was made of wood and was just filled with history. The house is entered by a main gate which opens into a courtyard. The main building is facing the courtyard and it is filled with antiques. The farmer and his wife who live there are used to having guests drop by and they demonstrate how they grind soybeans to make tofu, spin yarn, and the farmer has a few birds, one of which performs tricks. It really was a great place. The main hall of the house is a large room. The room is very interesting and has family shrines, old furniture, and carvings. After visiting the house, we continued on our way. When we got back to Yangshuo, we decided we had not seen enough of the countryside and decided to rent bikes to go back. The benefit to riding a bicycle through the countryside is that you get to go at your own speed, stop wherever you like, and get lots and lots of photographs. After riding around for a couple of hours, we headed back to where we rented the bikes and went on to visit a cooking school. .

We went to the cooking school because we were thinking of adding it to our itineraries. The school was located in the countryside in an ancient home. The owner, an Australian took us on a tour of the school. It is really located in a beautiful place. It overlooks the countryside and is surrounded by rice fields. There was a water buffalo playing in the water near the dining room. The school teaches people how to cook Guilin local cuisine making sure that the dishes are reproducible in the West, so no uncommon ingredients are used. Students first take a tour of a local market to see how the different vegetables and meats are sold. Then they go back to the school for class. The teachers are local Guilin people who speak excellent English and each person has his/her own wok and burner. They are taught to make several dishes and at the end of the day’s lesson, they all get together in the dining room to enjoy the meal. We were very impressed with the school. It is very well run and set up. The owner gave me a recipe book and I am going to cook some of the dishes and make a blog about that. After visiting the cooking school, we went to Yangshuo’s West Street.

West Street is famous as a shopping street. It is lined with shops, cafés, bars, and restaurants. The street is really unique in that there are as many, or more, tourists there, as there are Chinese. The shops are quite lovely selling everything from cheap souvenirs, to beautiful works of art. You can find artists of all types creating one of a kind pieces. There are also silk shops, clothing stores, and stores that sell Chinese minority handicrafts. The cafes and restaurants serve both Western and Chinese cuisine and the bars have a large selection of drinks. The street is fun during the day and also at night, when it really gets hopping. We really enjoyed walking down it looking in the shops, and sampling snacks.

We had dinner in a lovely restaurant near the Li River. We had local Guilin dishes including the famous Beer Fish. The dish is incredible and Yangshuo is very famous for it. After dinner we went to the Impressions of Liu Sanjia performance. The show was created by Chinese movie director Zhang Yimou. He also created the opening and closing ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The performance is really incredible. It uses over 600 performers and is performed right out in the Li River with the mountains as the backdrop. It tells the story of a girl, Liu Sanjie and how she gets married. It really is an amazing performance and no matter how many times we see it, we are always really impressed with it. It really should not be missed. After the performance, we went back to downtown Yangshuo to take the bus home.

Our trip to Yangshuo was a lot of fun. We got a huge amount of fantastic photos as well as found a new site to add to our itineraries. It was a great way for us to not only get a lot of work done, but to spend some time out of the office getting to know each other better.

To see more photos of our trip to Yangshuo, visit our photo album at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/62438483@N02/sets/72157626708551492/

Guilin Adventure Tours

In September of 2010, the team at http://www.accesschinatravel.com went on a Guilin Adventure tour at Maoer Shan Mountain outside of Guilin. It was a fantastic trip. We went to inspect the area to ensure it measured up to our quality standards. The scenery was breathtaking and it was a fantastic way for us to blow off steam and grow as a team. We took one of our tour busses, from Guilin to Maoershan. It was a 3 hour trip and we passed by and through Guilin's famous landscape and many small villages. The trip was beautiful, but not as pretty as where we were headed.

We arrived at our hotel which is the Guilin Adventure Camp. They host adventure tours. The hotel was simple, but very nicely designed, and very clean. The hotel is located between the foot of the mountain, and a river. The location is ideal and really lovely. The river that flows behind the mountain begins at the top of Maoershan. It is boulder strewn, and crystal clear. We could see clear to the bottom and watch the fish swimming in it. The river is crossed by a springy cable bridge, which was a lot of fun to cross.

After exploring a bit, we prepared for our river rafting ride. We got fitted with helmets, flotation devices, and had a safety orientation to make sure that nobody got hurt. We then posed for a group photo and boarded our inflatable rafts. While we were waiting for everyone to board, we paddled around to get used to the rafts and we had some fun splashing each other. We then headed down the river. The current was pretty swift and had a few rapids, but nothing too large. The scenery was really spectacular. The river is so clear and it is lined with mountains, bamboo groves, and pines. The rafting trip took an hour and a half. We then got out of our rafts and were driven back to the hotel where we had a huge meal. The food was really wonderful. It was traditional local cuisine and was very fresh and we had built up large appetites, so it was very much enjoyed. We then went hiking around the hotel and along the river behind it before having an outdoor bonfire and barbecue.

The bonfire and barbecue was fantastic. The hotel had set up a couple large barbecue grills and had skewered meats and vegetables for us to cook on the grill. After we had all gorged ourselves, they lit the bonfire and we all sat around it singing songs. By the time the bonfire had burned itself down, we were all very tired, and went to our rooms for some well earned rest.

The second day of our adventure:

In the morning we woke up and had a large breakfast. We then had the choice to either go paint-balling, or to hike up Maoer Shan Mountain. We chose to hike the mountain. It was an incredible hike. The mountain is gorgeous and is covered with bamboo groves and ancient pines. The paths up the mountain begin fairly level and gradually get steeper. The paths are paved with stone and very well maintained. The views are incredible and you never know what you're going to experience next. The paths tend to follow the river that flows down the mountain and passes the hotel. The water in its pools is incredibly blue. It looks fake, but it is natural. After hiking a while, we came across a couple of tea pavilions on the mountain. They were beautiful and nestled amongst the bamboos. We didn't stop on the way up. Farther up the mountain we came across the Dragon Spring. It is a pool fed by a waterfall. It was mesmerizing. The pool is very deep and a rich blue color. A lot of us took a refreshing dip in the pool. After swimming in the Dragon Spring, we hiked further up the mountain and came across some waterfalls and beautiful stone areas where the water widened and thinned and we could wade in it with only the sould of our shoes getting wet. It was a really fun experience. When we reached the top, we headed back down, and on the way we stopped at the tea pavilions for some oil tea. A traditional form of tea made by the Dong Ethnic Minority Group, oil tea is a real treat. It is bitter and complex and you add puffed rice, peanuts, and a bit of salt. After relaxing in the pavilions and enjoying the views, we headed back down the mountain and back to our hotel where we had another huge meal. After our meal, we checked out and got back on our tour bus for the ride home.

Our Guilin aventure tour was so much fun. The landscape was really spectacular and we all got a lot of wonderful photos.

To see more photos of our trip, check out our Flickr photo albums:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/62438483@N02/sets/72157626555496973/