"Longsheng, Ping'An and Zhongliu" Top 5 Page for this destination Longsheng by John195123

Individual tips will be marked by location! (Ping'An- Restaurant)

Lonsheng isn't much. There are a few hotels and restaurants on the street, a bus station and maybe even something to do. It's mostly just a convenient stopover for trips to Ping'An, Zhonglu and the other famous village of Dazhai, also known for its terraces.

Ping'An from the side

Ping'An is a pretty village famous for the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces. You have to pay 50 yuan a person to get into the park area (this kind of puts the next section in perspective...) The village sits amid the terraces, and older women with woven baskets on their backs wait to pounce on tourists before they even set foot outside their conveyance. They want you to stay at their place. Before you get to thinking "homestay," they mean their hotel. We planned on going solo, and did, but ended up staying at a place called Ju Long Hotel with a Russian girl who went up slightly ahead of us. There is a main circuit trail, mostly of stairs, that takes you to two scenic spots (cleverly called "1" and "2"). You can get off the beaten path, but they can be slick in winter and aren't designed for tourists, though they were great ways to dodge the local long-haired Yao women, who incessantly offered to take their hair down for an expensive photo, or tried to act as a guide. You don't need a guide, and I don't like the idea of paying someone for a photo... it sets a bad example.

Anyway, Ping'An is beautiful and worth a visit. It's too bad it's just not more real... darn tourism...

ZhongLiu Village

Zhongliu is a few kilometers out of Ping'An, to the northeast. If you take the main walking trail to the two scenic spots, a trail leads to Zhongliu.

I have nothing positive to say about the village itself. Maybe it was our luck, but even half a kilometer before town, a man asked us if we wanted to eat at his place. Closer to town, a woman asked us and followed, not taking "no" for an answer, then started making fun of us, repeating what we said. Good thing (or too bad) she didn't know what "beat the living tar out of you if you don't leave us alone" meant. It's like a telemarketer calling back repeatedly after you decline the service politely the first 100 times. Enough is enough. Anyway, after she left us alone, we proceeded out of town (accesibility may be difficult for some- the paths that wind through the town are narrow with many uneven and often slick steps ) where two more guys confronted us... basically to get us to eat at their friend's house. They wouldn't leave us alone until we turned around and headed back out of the village toward Ping'An.

Touts don't understand what harassment is, and we turned around because I was losing the demeanor of patience and kindness I've attained as a traveler. We wanted to eat lunch there, but we wanted to choose where. After it became dogmatically pushy, it wasn't worth it.

Further, it's indicative of the sad ways in which careless tourism (primarily Chinese to this region, though plenty of foreigners visit) has negatively impacted the local people, and has therefore harmed the genuine experience of local culture and even hospitality that once existed, pushing the locals into harassing tourists to make money.

• Pros:Beautiful Scenery
• Cons:Harassment by locals (in ZhongLiu especially)
• In a nutshell:With a strong demeanor, pass on to ZhongLiu!