words from the world

Renting a whole-day taxi is certainly the simplest way to reach the terraced rice fields of Ping'an. A gorgeous hill-nested village. A lot of villagers have understood the singularity of the place since hostals, restaurants and souvenirs stalls run alongside the maze of stairs which rise up into the hill. Maps put up at the forks indicate the different ways to get to the valley-overlooking viewpoints.



At the end of the village, the stairs keep on the side of the hill. On the left, harmonious green curves split the valley. These hard-to-reach, uneven hills were tamed by the rice farmers. Shaped in short terraces and broken through by small irrigation canals. Rice comes to maturity at this time of the year and a shining green covers the ingenious land terraces erected by the artist-farmers of the Ping'an county.










Our hike inside the rice fields stops as we meet the Yao women, ethnic minority whose hair length (more than 1m) is registered in the World guinness book.




Farmers line the way. Working the ground, bedding out the rice or mending an irrigation canal, these meticulous, apparently insignificant works are the elementary bricks of this twisted lines patchwork which draws the scenery of the hills.
Our path drops us off at Dazhai, surrounded by new thrilling rice fields terraces. From the proportions to the directions of the curves, from the heights of the terraces to the mesmerizing green of the rice seedling, everything was taken into consideration to offer a marvellous spectacle. And even if they are artists against their will, there's something genius inside the designers of these rice fields.