Ping An Village and the LiAn Lodge

I must capture this experience while it is still fresh in my mind.  I have long since abandoned the idea of writing these notes in any sort of sequence, but I surmise that you don’t care since none of us have ever heard of these places anyway.

We are driving back to Guilin after leaving the village of Ping An where Keren has his lovely LiAn Lodge.  As I mentioned before, Mary and Neil and Tom and I were here in 2007 and that stay was the impetus for our interest in Keren Su and why we have followed him during the past years since then.  Now we have experienced it for the second time.  This visit was familiar but quite different from the first.  Ping An looked pretty much the same, but there are many more people here now and structures are rising everywhere to accommodate them.  As before, we rode a sedan chair from the base of the village to the Lodge, which is at the top of the village.  Beyond the lodge there are stone and dirt paths for trekkers and photo hounds and a couple of wood viewing stations for the panoramic views. 

Yesterday after breakfast, the weather was cloudy and threatened rain but we set out anyway for a walk beyond the lodge to experience the rice paddies up close.  During the 45-minute walk, it began to rain in earnest, but we had umbrellas and rain jackets.  The path is literally cut right through the rice paddies and we could see them right before our eyes.  On some stretches of the path there was a sheer drop on both sides and, combined with the uneven and wobbly stones, this made for a bit of a nerve-wracking walk.  But we made it to the lovely old bridge that you see in the pictures and had a good rest before going back the same way.  Keren gave a tai chi demo on the bridge to soothe our (or I should say, MY) frazzled nerves.  In looking at the pictures, it doesn’t seem as scary as it did at the time.   When we got back to the lodge, Jane and I went off in the opposite direction to bargain a bit with the villagers.  I bought a great looking batik round tablecloth and Jane got some fun stuff for her grandkids.

But the main thing I want to tell you is about leaving the lodge.  We spent two nights there and by now are great friends with the darling young ladies who comprise the front desk staff, but this morning it was time to go.  After breakfast, we were packed and ready, but it was raining again, this time a bit more insistently and Keren told us our driver, who was returning from Guilin to pick us up, was stuck in traffic and would not be arriving any time soon.  So we retired to the bar with cups of tea and homemade truffles to watch some of Keren’s photographic slide shows—all of which are works of art in themselves.

We had debated whether to hire a sedan chair for the trip down the mountain or to walk.  Last time with the Andersons we rode up and walked down which was fine.  This time, because it was raining hard, we were urged by Keren to take the sedan chairs.  And in fact, the same guys who had taken us up had been waiting by the door since 5:30 in the morning in hopes of more of the big noses’ business. 

When it was finally time to go, I was wondering how we were going to get down the mountain without getting soaked, with or without a sedan chair.  And what if one of our guys slipped and tossed one of us off the mountain?  But no problem—clearly these guys are professionals.  We need not have worried.  We were offered ponchos if we needed them, escorted to our respective chairs by men with umbrellas--all luggage having been sent ahead on the backs of village women--and settled cozily into our chairs which were swathed in plastic and protected from the rain.  The chair hoisters then picked us up, each in turn, and set down the stony path through the village as sure-footed as mountain goats.  I took as many pictures as I could through the protective plastic, but I can’t begin to convey the sensation of being carried down the narrow slippery path, with tourists and villagers alike passing us in the other direction despite the narrowness of the path.  But we’re here to tell the tale and at the entrance to the village our driver was there with luggage already stowed.