Humans have been very innovative when it comes to expanding agricultural land and remaking the earths surface to suit themselves. We are remaking natural landscapes into cultural landscapes, and smaller and smaller proportions of the earths surface are truly natural.
Normally rice terraces like these are filled with water because large amounts of standing water are needed for rice farming. It's also one of the reasons rice farming has not been mechanized like other forms of agriculture, too much water causing rust and other problems for machinery. This is why you will see this mostly done by hand with farmers in the fields pulling weeds and working the crops.
As you can see there is a good size village here, this is called the devils backbone because locals felt like it looked like the scales of a dragon going down the sides of this mountain valley. These fields did not have standing water when I visited. I had read in many geography books that natural springs are used to fill these for rice harvests but the locals said there had been a water shortage so they had to switch to other crops. I don't know if this was a short term or long term problem, but maps of the region do show like many other agricultural regions to be having more and more trouble getting adequate sources of water. Can you tell what crops are being grown since these are not the usual rice crops?
In some of these pictures you can see people being carried by a litter which is a form of transportation that has been used in many countries, especially in ancient times. It is simply two poles with a chair in the middle and some tourists will pay to be carried because it is quite the climb to get to the top where the most scenic photos are taken. I didn't pay to be carried myself, but I saw several others being carried.
You can see the crop I was talking about earlier drying out here. This crop needs much less water and is quite a bit smaller than the size of a rice crop would be, but these are also specialty products which earn a higher price than rice. Any guesses? Any fans of Chinese food? I have some closer pictures below.
This is a closer picture of those carriers I was talking about.
They started building these here about 700 years ago, you can see some grave stones I came across as I climbed.
Yes, you can finally see the crop here, peppers! I was able to have a great dinner which was mostly peppers and an amazing view you can see here. You have probably heard people talk about how Chinese food is in fact very different in China than it is in other countries. That is because often they are influenced by local cultures, so when I have had Chinese food in America compared to for example, Germany of Egypt, it was quite a bit different in each place but dishes with red peppers were quite similar across cultures. We decided to take a van rather than hike back, and met a man and his pet duck. He said it was his pet but honestly I am not sure if much of our discussion translated well so he could have been saying dinner for all we know.
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