The origins of the Chinese staple

As we know too well by now, it is hard to go by a day in China without consuming some rice product. Plain boiled, fried with eggs and veg, made into noodles, or as the base for wine, it is everywhere. [Sidebar: the other things it is becoming increasingly hard to avoid, in order of occurrence are - pork, red bean and green tea, the latter rarely in its native form, more likely to be found in bread, cake or similar]
So we thought it apt that we should include in our travels around China a visit to the rice terraces. We chose Longji - about a two hour bus journey north of Guillin, and apparently the third most amazing sight in China (after the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors).
We arrived in Ping'an, a small mountainside village, to the sight of...thick clouds and pouring rain and not much else as visibility was about 10 metres. The 10 min walk though the village from where the bus dropped us to our hostel thoroughly soaked us but we were soon settled into the little cafe in the hostel with our fingers crossed that the clouds would lift at some point.
And thankfully they did, by late afternoon we figured we should go for a walk anyway as the rain had eased a little and remarkably as we stood at the top of the village the clouds parted - to reveal some spectacular scenery:

The tiny person in the bottom left of the above photo (a tiny blue patch) gives some idea of the scale of it - as does the person in this one:

And amazingly they were created over 1000 years ago...and are still maintained by hand:

After a dinner including bamboo rice, one of the local specialities (rice cooked on a BBQ inside bamboo), and a night's rest, we set off for a 4-5 hour hike through the countryside to Tiantouzhou, another small mountainside village. With no map worth speaking about and rapidly having run out of the signs that were around the village, we were in the hands of the local farmers - who thankfully were extremely helpful, confirming the way when we asked and even stopping us when they guessed (correctly) that we'd taken a wrong turn!

More rice terraces awaited us:

Along with some ducks, who apparently help to fertilise the land before the next crop is planted, but aside from that usefulness also entertained us by running up and down in lines:

Having walked through a light shower in the morning, we were lucky to arrive at our next hostel (a particularly good one, with a nice lounge to relax in and extremely helpful staff) before the skies properly opened again. The rain continued all night and was still going strong the next morning to give us another soaking as we walked down the hill to catch the bus back out...now with a slightly better understanding of how, even in the mountains, this country can produce so much rice.