Day two of our trip to Guanxi province and we left the misty mountains to find an architectural masterpiece: the Wind and Rain bridges of Sanjiang county.
Guanxi province hosts several ethnic minorities – our village in the rice terraces is inhabited by the Zhuang people – and the Wind and Rain bridges were built by the Dong people.
An almost three hour drive away from our beautiful rice terraces – still submerged in mist – we reached the most spectacular bridges that I have ever seen. They were built in 18 something by the Dong people and are about 65 meters long and roughly 10 meters wide. Entirely constructed out of wood and stone pillars to support the wooden pavilions, they were originally used by the local people as market places, where they would come together to sell their produce such as rice, cloth and rice wine. I guess now it is more of a ‘selling kitsch to tourists’ market or trap, but you can imagine what it must have been like when they were first used.
Surrounding the bridges are several Dong villages and lush green rice fields. We spent several hours walking around in the villages and even found a nice restaurant where we had lunch. The pagoda in the village centre was also quite spectacular. Sat on a hilltop, it has over twenty roof levels reaching into the sky like giant wooden pyramid.
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