Ping'an Village is located around the middle of Ping'an Rice Terraces and about 100km (62 miles) north of Guilin. This Village is inhabited by Zhuang nationality, thus sometimes it also referred as Ping’an Zhuang Village. The rice terraces around Ping'an Village were first built during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and finished in the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Till now, these Zhuang people living there have been cultivated the Ping'an Rice Terraces from generation to generation for over 650 years.
Among the whole Longji Terraced Fields, Ping'an Village now enjoys the most convenient guesthouses, restaurants and other modern amenities like foot bath center, and that’s why Ping'an Village becomes the most popular tourist site to enjoy the imposing Longji rice terraces.
Ping'an Rice Terraces is around the Ping'an Village. In order to get a bird's-eye of Ping'an Rice Terraces, there are two main viewpoints, one is “Nice Dragons and Five Tigers” (九龙五虎) and the other is “Seven Stars around the Moon” (七星伴月).
The No.1 viewpoint Nice Dragons and Five Tigers is the highest place to enjoy Ping'an Rice Terraces. It takes about 1-1.5 hours to get there from Ping'an Village by hiking alone the flagstone walkway. Its name "Nine Dragons” means nine ridges that looks like nine dragons branching off from the main vein and “Five Tigers” means five nearby little tiger-like hills squatting around the ridges.
There is a 4-story building settled at the No.1 viewpoint specifically for the scenery view. Around the building, there are several restaurants and snack shops. Besides, there is also a sightseeing bus ticketing point, from where you can down straightly to the Ping'an parking lot by taking those official sightseeing buses. The price of the sightseeing buses is about 30 RMB per person and its operating time is from 9:00 to 17:00.
Nine Dragons and Five Tigers
The No.2 viewpoint named “Seven Stars around the Moon” is really close to Ping'an Village. It can only be reached by hiking and hiking from the Ping'an village to get there takes less than half an hour. Compared with the No.1 viewpoint, there are more guesthouses, restaurants and other shops near the No.2 Viewpoint. Cross the densely settled guesthouses, restaurants and other shops of the village, you can easily find this No.2 viewpoint. There, you could see a round moon-like rice terraces surrounded by seven little rice paddies, which just like a natural picture that seven little stars around a moon. Usually, there are no rice plants grown in these rice terraces. But the round rice terrace in the center is always filled with glittering water.
Seven Stars around the Moon
● 1 Day Classic Tour by Sightseeing Bus & Hiking
Ping'an parking lot - (about 10 mins by sightseeing bus) - No.1 Viewpoint (Nine Dragons and Five Tigers) - (about 1-2h hiking) - No.2 Viewpoint (Seven Stars around the Moon) - (about 40 minutes hiking) - Ping'an parking lot or Longji Village
● 2 Day In-depth Tour by Hiking
D1: Ping'an parking lot - (about 30 minutes hiking) - Ping'an Village - (about 25 minutes hiking) - No.2 Viewpoint for sunset (Seven Stars around the Moon) - (about 25 minutes hiking) - Ping'an Village
D2: Ping'an Village - (about 1-2h hiking) - No.1 Viewpoint for sunrise (Nine Dragons and Five Tigers) - Ping'an parking lot or Jinkeng Rice Terraces
Recommended Tour:
Click to enlarge the Longsheng Terraces Map
Ping'an rice terraces area is the core tourist site of Longji Terraced Fields. It attracts tourist to there all year around. The scenery there changes with seasons, while usually the best time to visit there is from late-April to mid-October.
● From mid-April to mid-June - time for the mirror-like watery fields and labor life.
At the late April of every year, there will be a special Shuyang Festival (梳秧节) in Ping'an area. Start from that day, the local Zhuang nationality people begin to do the water diversion for irrigation and rice seedlings planting work. Usually, it takes about half a month to full fill the fields by water. Another half a month after that, the locals begin to plant rice seedlings. So this period of time is the best time to enjoy the little rice plants and the mirror-like fields full of glittering water. Besides, it is also the best time to admire the local labor life of Zhuang nationality people.
The Mirrior-like Ping'an Rice Terraces
● From mid-June to mid-September - time for green rice plants filling the terraces.
Usually, the rice seedlings have been planted for about one month if you go to Ping'an area after mid-June. Thus you can have a close experience of those grand rice terraces with mesmerizing green rice plants.
● From late September to early October - time for layers of golden rice plants.
This period of time is the harvest season and also the peak season of Longji Rice Terraces. All the rice terraces of Ping'an are decorated with golden rice plants, just like a “yellow sea” stretches to the mountains and mountains. The rice harvest work usually begins from the mid-October, while it may be postponed if there rains a lot.
Recommended Tour:
Nine Dragons and Five Tigers
The ticket price of the whole Longsheng Rice Terraces is 80 RMB per person. Once you book the ticket, you can visit the whole Longji Terraced Field, including the Ancient Zhuang Village Rice Terraces, Ping An Rice Terraces, Jinkeng Rice Terraces, etc.
Ping An parking lot is about 17km (10.5 miles) away from the entrance of the whole Longji Terraced Fieldes Area. All the cars, buses and coaches for tourism are forbidden to go inside the Ping'an Rice Terraces Scenic Area, so you should get off at the Ping'an Parking Lot, where is also the entrance of Ping'an Rice Terraces Scenic Area. In order to better plan your Ping'an tour, you are highly suggested to know the below transportation condition in advance.
Currently, there is no bus or coach traveling from Guilin to Ping'an directly. If you want to travel from Guilin to Ping'an by coach, you should make a transfer at Longsheng County (龙胜县) or Heping Village (和平乡).
Useful Link:>> How to Get from Guilin to Longji / Longji to Guilin
The coaches from Yangshuo to Longji can only arrive at the entrance of Longji Terraced Fields area or Dazhai Parking Lot of Jinkeng Rice Terraces. There is no direct coach from Yangshuo to Ping'an. Besides, for the coaches from Yangshuo to Longji travel more than 4 hours, you are more suggested to back Guilin to stay a night conveniently and travel from Guilin to Ping'an in the next morning.
Useful Link:>> How to Get from Yangshuo to Longsheng / Longsheng to Yangshuo
1. Hiking through Zhongliu Village
Hiking from Ping'an Village to Jinkeng via Zhongliu Village (中六村) is the most popular and wild hiking route in Longji Rice Terraces scenic area, especially for the hiking enthusiasts. This deep hiking route takes about 4-4.5 hours, including about 2 hours’ hiking from Ping'an to Zhongliu Village and another 2-2.5 hours’ hiking from Zhongliu Village to Tiantou Village in Jinkeng. Compared with Ping'an, Jinkeng is farther from the tourist entrance. Thus, travelers usually choose to visit Ping'an Rice Terraces first and stay at Ping'an Village for a night before hiking from Ping'an to Tiantou Village of Jinkeng. After arriving at Tiantou Village in the next day, they will plan a 1-2 days tour of Jinkeng Rice Terraces.
Warm Tip: You are highly suggested to wear long pants even in summer if you want to hike from Ping'an to Jinkeng for sometimes there may be snakes or mosquitos.
Ping'an to Jinkeng
2. Taking Car from Ping'an Parking Lot to Dazhai Parking Lot
There is no direct bus from Ping'an Parking Lot to Dazhai Parking Lot. If you want to get to Dazhai from Ping'an by bus, you should make a transfer at Er Long (Double Dragon) Bridge (二龙桥) in the middle way. Usually, the buses make a departure every 1 or 2 hour, so you may need to wait nearly 1 hour at Erlong Bridge if you missed one.
There is no direct bus between Ping'an and the Longji Ancient Zhuang Village, but a trail made by flagstone that available for hiking. Usually, hike from Ping'an down to the Longji Village takes about 40 minutes to 1.5 hours and back from Longji Village to Ping'an takes about 1-2 hours. This hiking route starts/ends near the No.2 viewpoint (Seven Stars around the Moon) of Ping'an Terraced Fields.
Though there is no direct bus traveling from Ping'an to Huangluo Yao Village, all the buses from Ping'an parking lot to Longsheng, Guilin or Yangshuo pass Huangluo Yao Village on the way, so you can take those buses and get off at the middle way to the Huangluo Yao Village. The service time of those buses is from about 7:30 to 17:00.
To travel Guilin, Longji and Yangshuo without any worry about the transportation, you can choose to enjoy our transfer service, and our local guide and driver would well arrange every step to provide you a comfortable trip from pick you up, escort you among the attractions and to send you off to your next destination or home. Therefore, you could pay more attention to the wonderful highlights on the way. If you are interested, please feel free to contact our professional travel expert for details.
Recommended Longsheng Rice Terraces Tour:
▶ 4 Days Highlights of Guilin, Yangshuo & Longji
▶ 3 Days Classic Guilin & Li River Cruise
▶ 5 Days Guilin Tour with Yangshuo & Longji Rice Terrace
▶ 6 Days In-depth Guilin Tour from Hong Kong
Hotels and guesthouses are mainly located in Ping'an Village. Though it is not as good as in the downtown area, the accommodation of Ping'an is much better than other villages of Longji. Most of the hotels there can provide basic items like hot water, air condition, a TV, private washroom, free Wi-Fi, etc. Some types of rooms there even have private viewing balcony that facing the marvelous rice terraces. Ping An Hotel is such a convenient hotel in the middle of the Ping'an village. Views of the rice terraces and many local family restaurants are just steps away from there. If you are looking for such a sightseeing hotel with kind price, Ping'an hotel is a good choice.
Ping'an Hotel
Most of guesthouses and hotels in Ping'an Village have their own restaurants. And there are also many local restaurants that only provide food and drink service around the village. Though the locals may not speak English fluently, you can order your meal according to the menu in both English and Chinese. The local bamboo food full fill with stream-soaked glutinous rice and wind-dry meat, peanuts, sour bamboo shoots and some other ingredients is one of the highlight of the Longji area. Usually, bamboo rice meal charges about 20 RMB and you can find such bamboo rice meal at all the restaurants of Ping'an Villages.
Longji Bamboo Rice
For the travelers with heavy luggage, you can ask the locals with pack basket in the entrance of Ping'an area for help. It may charge you about 40-80 RMB. For there may be language barrier, you can prepare the Chinese name of your destination in advance.
There are a lot of spine-crunching gravel tracks around the rice terraces. You are highly suggested to follow the main road, or you may get lost.
You are not suggested to arrange your Ping'an trip on your departure day or you may miss your flight, especially during the holidays like the National Holiday (10.1-10.7) and the Holiday of Labors Day (days around May 1st).
The weather changes quickly, so you are suggested to pack up your raincoat and comfortable antiskid shoes. Besides, please take your flashlight with you if you need to visit the rice terraces at night, though you are not recommended to do so.
If you want go to other rice terraces areas like Jinkeng and ancient Zhuang Village, you should keep your ticket well. There are separate ticket gates and you should show your tickets if you want to go inside.
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