(1/250 sec, f/4.8, Canon 70-200mm at 200mm, no flash, ISO 400)

As a short excursion on one of our last days in the Guanxi town of Yangshuo, we decided to visit the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces in Longsheng. Several nights before, out of money due to a collusion of circumstances and having had no success buying currency from the local bank in the tiny village using my credit card, i had found myself sitting on the floor of our hostel's lobby at three in the morning, a telephone receiver to my ear and its wire wrapped around my arm as I tried to reach a human being at either Bank of America or MasterCard for some emergency cash while it was light on the other side of the world (no success by the way - the beauracracy at some of these allegedly customer-service oriented companies was astoundingly stubborn and lumbering: while we found a few people who sounded genuinely interested in our plight, the corporate drive to "cover their ass" was more than a match for any humanity I encountered)...

While my girlfriend dozed off on a wicker chair in front of a floor fan with a bunch of phone cards next to her and the droning "hold music" nearly did away with my own consciousness, my eyes fell upon a famous Chinese photographer's collection of photographs of the rice terraces on the hostel desk. Immobile, and with my only two choices being to allow the Muzak to slowly drive me towards a burning inner rage or to lose myself in the images, I looked through the book. It wasn't long before the breathtaking images convinced us to go see the terraces for ourselves.

The construction of the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces - now considered one of China's most impressive engineering achievements - began in the thirteenth century under the Yuan Dynasty and continued until the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when construction was completed. They cover sixty-six square kilometers (over 16,300 acres), and stand as an impressive monument to the industry of the local Zhuang people. Today, the terraces are still in use and must contribute to a huge portion of the area's rice production. It's a vertigo-inducing, hairpin turn-filled bus ride up the mountain and a sweltering climb to the top, but it's worth it.

(1/60 sec, f/20, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 400)

They are absolutely beautiful. Green ribbons, almost like waves, rush down the mountainside, coiling around hills and snaking about in gentle curves all the way down to the bottom. While I would have loved to see it in the spring, when water irrigated into the yet-riceless fields sparkles like liquid gold or mercury poured into thousands and thousands of steps, the deep greens and blues of late summer painted a vibrant picture.

(1/250 sec, f/16, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 800)

Besides the Zhuang people that make up a dominant portion of the local population, there are also many from the Yao, Miao, and Dong minorities calling the area home. Plenty of chances for some nice photographs - I got this picture of a young girl jumping into the stream cutting through the town as her friends played in the water.

(1/1250 sec, f/5.6, Canon 50mm prime, no flash, ISO 400)

The town itself didn't seem interesting enough to keep us overnight, but it all worked out. The next morning was our last day in Yangshuo, and I woke up early enough to capture a Li River sunrise from the roof of our hostel:

(1/25 sec, f/22, Sigma 10-20mm at 20mm, no flash, ISO 100)

(1/20 sec, f/22, Sigma 10-20mm at 20mm (crop), no flash, ISO 200)

DRAGON'S BACKBONE RICE TERRACES/LONGSHENG PHOTOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL TIPS

- There is a daily tour bus from Yangshuo to Ping An, the main village near the terraces, leaving every morning at 7:30am and taking about 3 hours to arrive. It can be booked from any local agency, hostel, or hotel at Yangshuo.

- Unless you've got a lot of time to kill - stay in Yangshuo and take the bus for a daytrip to the terraces. Beyond the breathtaking vistas, there's not much to keep you interested, and Ping An has become very touristic. The only exception would be if you want to try and capture a sunrise or sunset view - then stay at one of the hostels at the top of the Ping An terraces.

- An ND grad filter will be very useful for keeping detail in the skies while shooting the terraces in sunny days. If you're making the trip, consider investing in one before you go. A wide-angle lens is also a must - it emphasizes the gradient of the terraced valleys and does very dramatic things to skies and clouds. Shooting the finely detail scene is a delicate balance, though. Go too wide and you'll begin to lose all the intricate details that make the steps and terraces so beautiful.

- All along Ping An and the climb to the top you'll be confronted by Red Yao women who will either try to sell you wares or charge you to take pictures of their world-famous long hair. They can be extremely persistent and follow you a surprising distance up the climb. Unless you want to photograph them, don't show any interest or they'll never leave you alone - but be respectful - understand that tourism has become an industry in this town and they are just trying to make a living. I saw a number of people rudely brush them aside or embarass them.

 

(1/320 sec, f/1.8, Canon 50mm prime, no flash, ISO 200)

A slew of photos today as we begin to reach the end of my reports on our two weeks in China. After our Li River Cruise, we spent a fascinating - and, for the first time, relaxing - four or five days in the small Guanxi town of Yangshuo, which sits on the edge of the Li River. Yangshuo has become - apparently in the last decade - a popular tourist and backpacking destination, mostly for the incredible countryside and landscapes that surround it. There is, however, little in the town itself that could be called traditionally Chinese - hundreds of shops and stalls selling everything from antiques and trinkets to counterfeit Hugo Boss and Ermenegildo Zegna silk ties to expensive chopstick sets and Chinese painted scrolls to plastic sunglasses.

(1/160 sec, f/4.5, Canon 70-200mm at 200mm, no flash, ISO 400)

After weeks of hiking through China, though, Yangshuo is a lovely little place to relax for a few days and use as a springboard to the stunning Guanxi country that surrounds it. While having dinner on our first night there with a Spanish couple we befriended I snapped this shot of my girlfriend with an adorable Chinese girl that would not leave us alone.

(1/50 sec, f/4.0, Canon 70-200mm at 75mm, no flash, ISO 1600)

Here's a nice shot of the sun rising over the Li River from the roof of our hostel. It's a bit stock but I like it quite a bit:

(1/40 sec, f/22.0, Canon 50mm prime, no flash, ISO 200)

One day we rented bikes and found ourselves lost on a highway to Guilin, and after stopping for water and fruit my girlfriend befriended an older man who showed us the way to a scenic river - the Yulong - near his home. We drank beer in his house and he brought us some peanuts he had farmed himself, and we ended up paying him for a tour of the river. The two-hour raft trip yielded some of the most magnificent scenes we had seen yet.

(1/160 sec, f/4.5, Canon 50mm prime, no flash, ISO 400)

(1/200 sec, f/10, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 400)

(1/250 sec, f/14, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 400)

(1/400 sec, f/7.1, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 400)

Next - the Longsheng Rice Terraces before we close the trip out in Hong Kong.

YANGSHUO PHOTOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL TIPS
- Visit the Moon Water Cave - it's about a fifteen minute ride outside of the the town, and has a mud bath halfway through that's a lot of fun. And take a tripod and your gear to capture the rice paddies in the sunset from the mouth of the cave. I left my camera at the hostel and still regret it. It was so surreal, I felt like i was in a real-world Oblivion.
- There is no place to change money for hours, and the banks in the area won't allow you to use a credit card to buy local currency. Change more money than you think you'll need before you leave for the town.
- Take advantage of the cheap bike rentals available all around the town (as in, a dollar-a-day cheap): the area surounding Yangshuo is amazing and full of photographic opportunities. Take lots and lots of water wherever you go - especially in the summer - the climate is absolutely sweltering.
- If you're looking for some cheap hostel-style Yangshuo accomodations, the Bamboo House Inn & Cafe can't be beat. They don't have a website, but you can email them at bamboohouse23@yahoo.com. Ask for Rosie.
- Craving french toast or brick oven pizza? A couple of great places for Western food which you'll for sure miss if you've been travelling in China for a while (and both at which you can meet Westerners who decided to pack up and move to Yangshuo for good): The Buffalo Bar, run by an Australian traveller, Alf Exposito and his wife Mingfang, serves up both Western and Chinese fare and is a great place to plan your day over breakfast. Alf also owns a beautiful hotel in the area called the Li River Retreat. Similarly, visit the family-run Yak Cafe: Andrew and Sula serve up some great food as well and rent bikes on which you can explore the countryside.

After practically having to tear ourselves away from the ancient water village of Fenghuang, our next stop was Guilin - an unremarkable and largely industrial mid-sized city in the Guanxi province, but also the departure point for what has been described as "one of the planet's most stunningly beautiful journeys": the five-hour, 84-kilometer cruise down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo.

The cruise is an absolute must if you're in Guanxi - our five hours on the Li River were a seemingly endless parade of some of the most imposing scenery I've ever seen. Names like Elephant Trunk Hill, Pagoda Hill, and Yellow Cloth Shoal (the Chinese honor nearly every landmark with a descriptive, although not always obvious, moniker) are called out over speakers while lunch is served, and the rest of the ride can be spent on either of the ferry's two decks watching scenes like this roll by:

(1/800 sec, f/7.1, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 200)

The mountains, much like the limestone formations we saw at Wulingyuan, are some of the world's most striking examples of karst scenery. They rise up in strange, otherworldly pillars and mounds and seem more like something out of a fantasy world than a scene in real life. Most impressive, there are layers and layers of peaks lined up in rows - one behind the other - fading into the distance against the sky. It reminded me of visiting the Grand Canyon and thinking that the vast distances made the opposite side appear like a painting, surreal and slightly faded like the backdrops in The Land Before Time. The Chinese often referred to the scenes (and those at Zhangjiajie) as the country's "natural art galleries."

(1/500 sec, f/7.1, Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm, no flash, ISO 200)

I was glad I had purchased a sweet circular polarizing filter for my wide-angle lens just a week before the trip - it really contributed to the saturated colors and contrast in the final shots, including this one of the Chinese flag against one of the country's most majestic landscapes:

What really struck me was how much the vistas reminded me of the well-known traditional landscape paintings of the Far East - when finally face to face with the clear inspiration behind those delicate images the resemblance is uncanny. Actually, the scene depicted on the back of the 20RMB bill is a representation of the river's most famous panoramas:

Traveling the Li River is a truly awe-inspiring experience - don't miss it if you're anywhere near the area - and if you forget a wide-angle lens you'll never forgive yourself.