Full-Day Bus Tour: Longji Rice Terraces and Local Minority Villages

Total waste of time and money! We have called the agency the day before our tour and they told us our pick up time was 8:30. The next day the concierge called us at 8:05 to tell us that our tour guide is waiting for us. We were picked up by a 7-passenger van. Our group was really nice and we really enjoyed talking to the other passengers on the bus. The tour guide gave some instructions in English along the way until we were stuck in traffic due to nat'l holiday. We weren't moving for a really long time due to an accident and cars of the other lane using both lanes and thereby blocking ours which delayed our journey for at least 2 hours. When we arrived at the commercialized local village and were getting off the van, the villagers already tried to make us buy their products. The long hair show was unauthentic with playback singing and show-smoke. The worst was that the local women wanted all the men to come to the stage to act like they were marrying a local girl. They took my boyfriend along with other men behind the stage where they kind of forced them to buy a bracelet for 50yuan for the local girls. Back on the stage they had to trade the bracelet with the girl into a cheap and small fabric bag. Total scam! Afterwards we had to walk along an alley where even more villagers tried to sell their products. It was so annoying! The food was okay, although nothing special. At 4:30 we finally arrived at the rice terraces and the tour guide kind of forced us to buy cable car tickets at least for a single ride bc we were already so late. We wanted to hike both ways which would have been almost impossible because our van was supposed to leave at 6:30. After we agreed to buy single trip tickets, he set the time to 6pm so we only had 15 minutes to take pictures of the rice terraces at the top which were the reason for us to book this tour. If the traffic is bad, please set priorities and limit the time at the village in order to have enough time at the rice terraces!

Everything you could expect from a standard tour of the Longji villages. Tour guide spoke good English, made the experience pleasant. The performance by the local villagers was entertaining and interesting, followed by a decent lunch before leaving us to freely explore the rice terraces ourselves. The tour was even kind enough to drop us off back in Guilin, next to the bus station. Very helpful. A good trip all round!

Nice tour, delicious lunch, pick up on time, no forced shopping stops.

The tour guide was very organised. Called the hotel to say he was stuck in traffic and would be 5 mins late. Would be hard to arrange getting to the rice terraces yourself so well worth the money. We had a delicious lunch and the rice terraces were beautiful. Overall it was a very enjoyable day