Rice Terraces in Yuanyang

After the Muslim Quarter, we flew to a city called Kunming, in Yunnan Province. Yunnan is famous for flowers, fruits, vegetables and rice. We took a bus from Kunming to Yuanyang, way up in the mountains, to visit the famous rice terraces.

It was pretty hard. I mean look at the road. Does that look easy to get through? They were working on the roads all over Yuanyang.

There were other problems too. Our bus was very big and the roads were very narrow. All sorts of things got in our way.

Such as backhoes.

And people going to market. Not to mention motorcycles and cars.

Once, we got stuck and our driver had to find a way to turn the bus around on the narrow road. That time, we were in other people’s way.

 

“Was it worth it to reach the rice plantations, Parker?”

“I think so, Mom.”

 

Aren’t they beautiful?

 

The way down to the rice terraces was pretty steep.

Rice grows in water, so don’t try to plant rice at home, kids, unless you have a lake. Water comes down from the very top of the mountain, and flows through pipes and ditches into the terraces. Here, the water is being diverted to two different terraces. 

I can’t imagine what it would be like to weed all those rice terraces. It was like tons of swimming pools all stacked on top of each other with plants growing in them. When you looked past all the terraces, it looked like the end of the world. 

The farmers who work in the rice terraces live in little villages.

The mountains are too steep for machines, so they do all the work by hand. These farmers are herding their water buffalo up to the fields. The buffalo help plow the terraces, move stones and build terrace walls.

These women were carrying bricks. Everywhere you went, you had to go uphill or downhill.

The people wore traditional outfits. They belong to minority groups in China. There are a lot of different minority groups in this part of China.

Zhongji said this girl and I were both the same age. Do we look alike? In my opinion, we don’t. 

The village market was pretty awesome.

Look at the beautiful fruits (especially the mangos – yum!).

This is the corn. This is the corn. This is the corn. For Azariah.

We bought mangos too. I’m licking the sticky juice off the seed. Hungry, Paola?

This is the temple of Confucius. It is the second largest Confucian temple in China. I think you will like it Ms. Shields, since we studied Confucius.

The Chinese bring a lot of offerings to Confucius.

The courtyard in front of the temple was full of good smells. They were coming from a huge, beautiful bronze pot with incense sticks burning inside.

They invited foreigners to light free incense sticks to show their respect for Confucius. I lit five of them.

I loved the huge lake at the temple. It made me feel peaceful and happy. Lakes always do that for me. I had a fun time today, and I hope I have another cool day tomorrow.