Well, I thought I had posted pictures of this trip a long time ago...guess I just thought about it, but never really did it! One day on our October break we took a bus tour to see the famous Hakka houses of Fujian province. After much debate (nothing seems to be easy here, or maybe we're just too indecisive at times) we decided to tag along with one of Gene's coworkers and her visiting-for-the-holidays sister on a Chinese tour. Yes, we were the only foreigners on the packed bus. We secured seats in the back row, a slightly elevated view of the rest of the bus, but no more leg room. Thus, we sat sort of sideways so that our long, Western legs had a bit of space. Pretty funny that my 5'4" frame is on the "tall" side! The ride was quite uncomfortable which was too bad for us since it was 3 hours long! The first two hours were unremarkable except for the miles and miles of banana farms (orchards? groves?) that we passed. We enjoyed some nice samples when we stopped for a quick break and I was feeling pretty good about eating local, until I realized that bananas seem to be a mono-crop in this area. Just can't win sometimes! The last hour of the ride offered some great views along very winding and increasingly high mountain roads. Our driver was not exactly steady and was very heavy on the horn-blowing...we were glad we didn't eat large breakfasts that morning.
Our first views of the houses. Here's a bit of info, lifted from a local travel site since we couldn't understand our tour guide and we didn't expect our friend to translate every word. The earthen buildings (tulou in Chinese) were mostly built between the 12th to 20th centuries (very precise!). They can be round, square or half-moon in shape, with an open courtyard in the center. They are built with up to 6 foot wide walls, made up of "earth" packed onto a wooden skeleton, three to five stories high. Depending on the size, they can house up to 80 families. The structures have just one main entrance, a heavily guarded gate. Apparently they were built this way as a means of defense against attacks. There is some evidence that the US authorities thought these round structures were missile silos and saw them as a threat. Some people think this is funny, but I'm sure they look quite curious from the sky/satellite!
After the very long bus ride, we stopped at a large, rectangular Tulou that is a restaurant and hotel/guest house. We were placed at an outdoor table while the rest of the group went into private rooms. We were fine with this since our table was in the shade and we wanted some fresh air after being in the bus for so long. Our sweet guide, Jenny, and her identical twin sister, Jenny, were kind enough to secure a vegetarian lunch for our table. We had a vast bowl of rice, some "green vegetable" (we call it bokchoi), tofu and some other vegetable dishes, all arrayed on the handy-dandy lazy susan in the middle of our round table. Gene and I also shared a nice, tall, cold beer.
Our girls finished lunch first and then wandered around the Tulou, taking pictures from the upper floors, while we finished our food. Notice the cobble stone floor--looks cool but made scooting the chairs in and out a bit difficult!
Liz and Amanda posing for pictures for the two Jennys in the courtyard. Notice the well to the far left side--we also saw laundry hanging around the top levels, so we think the people who run the restaurant and guest house also live here.
The inner corridors, complete with good-luck Chinese New Year lanterns and freshly washed laundry.
Next we walked about 3/4 of a mile down the road to the entrance of the giant, tourist Tulous. Amanda made friends with the only other child on the tour. This little girl ran right up to her and held her hand as we walked! Very sweet. We did a lot of smiling and nodding as we had no language skills whatsoever at that point (and can't do a whole lot better now--okay, maybe a little better, but we still do a lot of smiling, nodding and pointing, along with gesturing wildly now and then).
We spotted this interesting truck along our walk...the Jennys thought it was funny that we don't tend to have exposed-engine trucks in the US! I thought it was pretty bad of this guy to just dump the truckload of who-knows-what over the edge of the hill, but this is not uncommon here, even in places that are crawling with tourists! We shudder to think of what must go on in more private areas.
This round Tulou seems to be more modern and sleek. Don't have much information about it, but I liked the look of it.
After our tour guide paid the entrance fee for our busload, we entered into a wide yard with this giant Tulou. Since the tour was conducted in Mandarin and all the signs and brochures were also Chinese, we don't have much historical information to pass along. Good thing a picture is worth a thousand words. (feel free to google Hakka houses, the Hakka people built the tulou) We did manage to learn that this big house and some others like it are now under protection by UNESCO (I think that's the name of the organization, anyway!).
We went inside this big Tulou, but I much prefer the exterior pictures. The insides were, regrettably, filled to the hilt with crippity-crap for sale. I realize that is not a proper word, but it's the only one that fits here. We were terribly disappointed to see every square inch covered with stands selling the same junk as all the other stands lining the narrow hallways.
I believe this is a type of altar for making burnt offerings. It was not being used when we were there.
Drying fruit the old-fashioned way. We had no info about the extent to which these Tulou were inhabited, but we surmised that the people selling plastic replicas, etc are the residents. I couldn't figure out what type of fruit this was, though.
Liz checked out the goods at one of the fancier stalls, but we did not buy anything. Notice the website posted above the bracelets--you can order yourself some genuine Hakka memorabilia!
Some of the houses were double-packed, with smaller structures inside the courtyards of a bigger, outer house. They felt very close and crowded and I don't think they would be very pleasant in the rain, what with all those roof-lines to drip on the people below.
A warn stone path along the outside of one house. The trough to the left is for drainage, we think. Or sewage...thankfully it was dry!
We continued to snap photos through the bus windows on the long ride home...still like the outside views better than the inside and the homes look so beautiful in their natural surroundings (as opposed to the tourist surroundings that we left behind). We also saw rows and rows of tea bushes, planted on narrow terraces along the mountainsides. The guide said something about which type of tea it was, but we are not tea connoisseurs so we did not ask for a translation.
We stopped at another banana stand on the way home--nice specimens!
The lovely ladies--the middle Jenny is Gene's coworker . It is hard to tell in this picture, but both the twins are wearing 3-inch wedge heels! As is common with most tours of historical places, we walked many miles, mostly in the beating sun. I guess they are accustomed to it because they never complained. A side note about the Jennys: the visiting twin had chosen the English name Jenny when she was in high school, our Jenny was assigned the name by one of her college teachers! Must be a twin thing. Overall, we had an enjoyable day but we were glad to be off the bus and thankful to have made it home in one piece. The bus driver's mad technique defies description so I won't even try, just know that we were very glad to be back on solid ground (and away from the woman whose stomach was a bit weaker than ours on the winding ride home...)
Well, I thought I had posted pictures of this trip a long time ago...guess I just thought about it, but never really did it! One day on our October break we took a bus tour to see the famous Hakka houses of Fujian province. After much debate (nothing seems to be easy here, or maybe we're just too indecisive at times) we decided to tag along with one of Gene's coworkers and her visiting-for-the-holidays sister on a Chinese tour. Yes, we were the only foreigners on the packed bus. We secured seats in the back row, a slightly elevated view of the rest of the bus, but no more leg room. Thus, we sat sort of sideways so that our long, Western legs had a bit of space. Pretty funny that my 5'4" frame is on the "tall" side! The ride was quite uncomfortable which was too bad for us since it was 3 hours long! The first two hours were unremarkable except for the miles and miles of banana farms (orchards? groves?) that we passed. We enjoyed some nice samples when we stopped for a quick break and I was feeling pretty good about eating local, until I realized that bananas seem to be a mono-crop in this area. Just can't win sometimes! The last hour of the ride offered some great views along very winding and increasingly high mountain roads. Our driver was not exactly steady and was very heavy on the horn-blowing...we were glad we didn't eat large breakfasts that morning.
Our first views of the houses. Here's a bit of info, lifted from a local travel site since we couldn't understand our tour guide and we didn't expect our friend to translate every word. The earthen buildings (tulou in Chinese) were mostly built between the 12th to 20th centuries (very precise!). They can be round, square or half-moon in shape, with an open courtyard in the center. They are built with up to 6 foot wide walls, made up of "earth" packed onto a wooden skeleton, three to five stories high. Depending on the size, they can house up to 80 families. The structures have just one main entrance, a heavily guarded gate. Apparently they were built this way as a means of defense against attacks. There is some evidence that the US authorities thought these round structures were missile silos and saw them as a threat. Some people think this is funny, but I'm sure they look quite curious from the sky/satellite!
After the very long bus ride, we stopped at a large, rectangular Tulou that is a restaurant and hotel/guest house. We were placed at an outdoor table while the rest of the group went into private rooms. We were fine with this since our table was in the shade and we wanted some fresh air after being in the bus for so long. Our sweet guide, Jenny, and her identical twin sister, Jenny, were kind enough to secure a vegetarian lunch for our table. We had a vast bowl of rice, some "green vegetable" (we call it bokchoi), tofu and some other vegetable dishes, all arrayed on the handy-dandy lazy susan in the middle of our round table. Gene and I also shared a nice, tall, cold beer.
Our girls finished lunch first and then wandered around the Tulou, taking pictures from the upper floors, while we finished our food. Notice the cobble stone floor--looks cool but made scooting the chairs in and out a bit difficult!
Liz and Amanda posing for pictures for the two Jennys in the courtyard. Notice the well to the far left side--we also saw laundry hanging around the top levels, so we think the people who run the restaurant and guest house also live here.
The inner corridors, complete with good-luck Chinese New Year lanterns and freshly washed laundry.
Next we walked about 3/4 of a mile down the road to the entrance of the giant, tourist Tulous. Amanda made friends with the only other child on the tour. This little girl ran right up to her and held her hand as we walked! Very sweet. We did a lot of smiling and nodding as we had no language skills whatsoever at that point (and can't do a whole lot better now--okay, maybe a little better, but we still do a lot of smiling, nodding and pointing, along with gesturing wildly now and then).
We spotted this interesting truck along our walk...the Jennys thought it was funny that we don't tend to have exposed-engine trucks in the US! I thought it was pretty bad of this guy to just dump the truckload of who-knows-what over the edge of the hill, but this is not uncommon here, even in places that are crawling with tourists! We shudder to think of what must go on in more private areas.
This round Tulou seems to be more modern and sleek. Don't have much information about it, but I liked the look of it.
After our tour guide paid the entrance fee for our busload, we entered into a wide yard with this giant Tulou. Since the tour was conducted in Mandarin and all the signs and brochures were also Chinese, we don't have much historical information to pass along. Good thing a picture is worth a thousand words. (feel free to google Hakka houses, the Hakka people built the tulou) We did manage to learn that this big house and some others like it are now under protection by UNESCO (I think that's the name of the organization, anyway!).
We went inside this big Tulou, but I much prefer the exterior pictures. The insides were, regrettably, filled to the hilt with crippity-crap for sale. I realize that is not a proper word, but it's the only one that fits here. We were terribly disappointed to see every square inch covered with stands selling the same junk as all the other stands lining the narrow hallways.
I believe this is a type of altar for making burnt offerings. It was not being used when we were there.
Drying fruit the old-fashioned way. We had no info about the extent to which these Tulou were inhabited, but we surmised that the people selling plastic replicas, etc are the residents. I couldn't figure out what type of fruit this was, though.
Liz checked out the goods at one of the fancier stalls, but we did not buy anything. Notice the website posted above the bracelets--you can order yourself some genuine Hakka memorabilia!
Some of the houses were double-packed, with smaller structures inside the courtyards of a bigger, outer house. They felt very close and crowded and I don't think they would be very pleasant in the rain, what with all those roof-lines to drip on the people below.
A warn stone path along the outside of one house. The trough to the left is for drainage, we think. Or sewage...thankfully it was dry!
We continued to snap photos through the bus windows on the long ride home...still like the outside views better than the inside and the homes look so beautiful in their natural surroundings (as opposed to the tourist surroundings that we left behind). We also saw rows and rows of tea bushes, planted on narrow terraces along the mountainsides. The guide said something about which type of tea it was, but we are not tea connoisseurs so we did not ask for a translation.
We stopped at another banana stand on the way home--nice specimens!
The lovely ladies--the middle Jenny is Gene's coworker . It is hard to tell in this picture, but both the twins are wearing 3-inch wedge heels! As is common with most tours of historical places, we walked many miles, mostly in the beating sun. I guess they are accustomed to it because they never complained. A side note about the Jennys: the visiting twin had chosen the English name Jenny when she was in high school, our Jenny was assigned the name by one of her college teachers! Must be a twin thing. Overall, we had an enjoyable day but we were glad to be off the bus and thankful to have made it home in one piece. The bus driver's mad technique defies description so I won't even try, just know that we were very glad to be back on solid ground (and away from the woman whose stomach was a bit weaker than ours on the winding ride home...)
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