In the second week of January, for Emily's 30th Birthday, we flew to Guanxi province for a long weekend escape from the cold and pollution where we spent a few days in the Khast landscape of Yangshuo before heading north for a days hiking in the Longji Rice Terraces.

Here's a selection of my Instagram pics taken from the trip.

For the final two days we headed to the Longji Rice Terraces north of Guilin. En route, we stopped at the Jinzhongshan Scenic area where we briefly went to a hot spring (not even really open yet) and visited an amazing cave that we had pretty much to ourselves. Heading on north, we passed a spectacular monster of a power station in the middle of nowhere and passed farmers herding their ducks across the road, to finally arrive late in Ping'an for a torchlight hike up the hillside to our guesthouse.

The following morning we awoke to discover that the skies had cleared and we had amazing views of the terraces. We then set off on the most amazing trek to Dazhai via the picturesque village of Zhongliu. Despite a few wrong turns along the way, and more hindered than helped by our impromptu “guide” who we met along the way (a local Yao minority woman with the most amazing long hair) we made it to our driver before heading straight to the airport to catch our flight back to Beijing.

My Instagram pics are below. I also took many more photos with my DSLR which are visible on Flickr. The first set from Yangshuo and Jinzhongshan is visible here and the second from the Longji Rice Terraces is here.