The Adventure Continues.....: Rice Paddies, Strong Women, Amazing Scenery

11/10

Tuesday, November 10

Early morning mist envelops the mountainsides obscuring the view

Interesting that many fruit trees were blossoming in November!

Early to Rise

Wanting to catch the sunrise over the rice paddy terraces, we pulled ourselves out of bed before six and piled into the van for a 45 minute torturous ride to the primo spot to watch the sunrise. Still dark out, we passed the murky figures of laborers (men and women) and uniformed school children with their parents walking to school. Already there were quite a few scooters, trikes and a few cars and trucks on the street.

A Note About Schools

Apparently, if a parent wishes a good education for their children they often pay handsomely (by Chinese standards) for private schooling, especially in the rural areas. In many towns that have no schools, even elementary students will live at "dormitory school" during the week and come home for the weekends. Often young children are cared for by grandparents, and sometimes raised by them solely because the parents are working in cities far away.

Although the school is mandatory from ages six or seven to fifteen, however, this is not enforced, so there are children in rural areas that do not go to school or may have an abbreviated education. Schooling is quite rigorous, however, even in public schools. It is an eight hour day, although here is usually an hour for lunch, and that does not include homework! Private schools are even more rigorous, even for young children.

Another Harrowing Drive

Thick fog enveloped us as we wound up the steep, narrow mountain road, narrowly avoiding the occasional pothole, pig, water buffalo, geese, washout areas and piles of rubble where small rockslides had occurred. Often we would catch up with a small overloaded truck or trike lumbering slowly up the hill, and wait patiently behind them until it was safe to pass.

Sunrise Over the Terraces or "When in Rome..."

We arrived at the designated tourist spot and were immediately accosted by local women in full native dress with their beautifully attired young children, aggressively trying to sell us souvenirs. We pushed our way through them and walked to the viewing area and discovered it was windy and foggy with zero visibility! So we did what we do best - improvised. The nearby cherry and fruit trees. We're not only full of blossoms, but lots of birds. So we spent an hour birding, then had some noodles for breakfast, during which the weather partially cleared. And... We added some really cool bird species to our list!

The Ancient Terraces

The view was breathtaking. Undulating row upon row of rice paddies in terraced rows stretched out along the sides of the mountains below us. We later read that many of these terraces dated back as far as 1,300 years. Intricate irrigation systems channel water from the mountainsides into sluiceways that flow through each paddy, using gravity. The reflections, shapes and light were spectacular. A bonus - we would see a farmer ploughing using a water buffalo, or people planting in the fields. We spent most of the day roaming from viewpoint to view point photographing the terraces.

Close Up Rice Paddy

At one point we found a path that led down into the rice paddies themselves. I was surprised to see how high the walls between levels were - and then I remembered many of them had been built up for over a thousand years. We encountered a farmer ploughing his field with his oxen. Barefoot, the farmer waded up to his thighs in the muddy water, while the water buffalo pulled the heavy plow churning up the soil and water. There was a pile of hay at the end of the row, which seemed to be a good incentive for the animal to keep on going. A tough way to make a living, I thought.

Strong Women

We stopped and walked through a very picturesque village perched on the mountainside. As usual, we saw older people, young children and women doing incredibly physical work. This time a group of four women were loading a stack of approximately 30 bricks onto their backs and bringing them from a pile at the top of a steep hill down to a building under construction. It was not unusual to see women carrying huge loads of firewood, crops and building supplies on their backs, aided by a strong cloth band going around their forehead everywhere we went. Padding consisting of coconut matting, or lots of layers of cement bags provide padding for their backs.

Rural Homes

Many of these homes looked fairly modern, but as in most areas of rural China, even in the towns, the top floor is often open and hay, dried crops and such are stored there, the extended family lives in the middle floor, and the ground floor houses the animals. Often there is a gated courtyard and sometimes we could peek in and see animals, crops drying, a vehicle of some sort and perhaps people working inside.

David told us that Mao was still popular among many rural farmers, because they actually benefitted by acquiring a better standard of living than before communism in many cases. I would add that because many of these people were not very literate, they certainly have not learned of the more negative aspects of Mao's regime.

Waterways

Many of the towns and villages we visited had elaborate waterway systems channeling water from the mountains into and through the communities. Often this water is very pure, and people use it for cleaning and bathing (although not usually for drinking). Because it is so mountainous, the water is gravity fed as it is distributed along channels next to the roads. In most of Yunnan province there is plenty of rainfall, in fact in the southern regions they have a monsoon season. The same type of system provides water for the thousands of rice paddies along the mountainsides and in the valleys.