Explore the Longji Rice Terraces on a full‑day trip with visits to nearby Zhuang and Yao villages.After about two hours’ drive, the city disappears and the flat Li River plain turns into green hills, river valleys, and winding mountain roads, with rice terraces gradually appearing on the slopes and wrapping whole hillsides like a dragon’s scales – the origin of the name “Dragon’s Backbone”.
On arrival, you take a shuttle or walk up to Ping’an, one of the most classic terrace villages. From paths and viewpoints such as “Seven Stars with the Moon”, you look over water‑filled plots in the valley, mid‑slope paddies covered in young rice, and high terraces curving along the contours, changing with the seasons from silver to bright green to gold. It is an ideal place for photos and for feeling how generations of farmers have shaped this steep landscape.
After the views, the tour shifts from “seeing terraces” to “meeting the people who farm them”. Walk along narrow stone lanes into a traditional wooden stilt‑house home in a Zhuang or Yao village, where timber houses climb the hillside and eaves are often hung with corn or red chillies. Inside a family home you see the typical three‑level layout – storage or livestock below, living rooms in the middle, grain stored above – while your hosts welcome you with smiles and simple stories about farming seasons and village life.
Here you try making traditional rice cakes (ciba). Your hosts show you soaked, freshly steamed sticky rice and pour it into a wooden mortar. One person pounds it with a wooden mallet while another turns the rice; you can also try a few careful strokes yourself. When the rice becomes smooth and elastic, it is shaped into small pieces and rolled in peanut crumbs, soya bean powder, sesame, or brown sugar so you can taste this soft, chewy snack on the spot. For local families, rice cakes are linked to festivals and symbolise reunion or good fortune.
Next you experience “oil tea”, a classic Guangxi drink and key part of local food culture. Among Zhuang and Yao people, it is both a daily breakfast and a way to welcome guests. Your host lightly fries tea leaves in oil, then adds peanuts, garlic, ginger and other ingredients, stir‑frying until the kitchen fills with a roasted aroma, before pounding the mixture and boiling it with water into a steaming broth poured over puffed rice, crispy grains and peanuts in your bowl. A slightly bitter, gingery first sip quickly turns into warm nutty and grain sweetness.
Finally, you sit with local craftswomen to assemble a small traditional embroidered ball (xiuqiu) to take home. In Guangxi, especially among the Zhuang, embroidered balls are colourful lucky charms and tokens of affection, used in “throwing the embroidered ball” courtship games and hung in homes for good fortune. The embroiderer gives you pre‑cut, decorated fabric petals and guides you to join them with simple stitches until a small ball takes shape, then you add tassels or a hanging cord.
