February 2, 2016
Goubei to Renhecun
Tulou dwellings
It could well be an urban myth, but it’s said that in the 1980s the US military saw aerial photos of Fujian’s ancient tulou dwellings and mistook them for missile silos. Looking at the satellite images on Google Maps, you can certainly spot lots of the distinctive circular shapes dotted around the province, so the Americans may have panicked. There are said to be some 20,000 in all.
Some tulou date back centuries. Their extremely thick external walls are made of compacted earth, while interior walls and floors are wood. Most of these castle-like homes stand a few stories high and often house multiple families. The best examples were given World Heritage Site status in 2008, but instead of visiting the main touristy ones, I wanted to take a peek at the ones a bit more remote. The 6.30 AM bus would take me directly there.
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I am at the bus terminus before the doors are unlocked, along with about 100 people, all standing around in the chilly darkness. Come 6.00AM, the rush to get through the doors is ridiculous; then all baggage goes through an X-ray machine; then everybody sits and waits.
It turns out my 6.30 departure is delayed 15 minutes and when it does arrive, the rush to cram baggage into its small hold is so great there is no chance for my bike and panniers. What a disaster.
Well, so much for there being only one bus a day up to main tulou sites of Goutou and Hukeng. A helpful member of staff books me on the 7.10. There is a small charge for the bike – around US$3 – but it has the hold all to itself. After all the messing about, it is just such a relief to be leaving Xiamen and to be starting the tour, even if it is a coach ride.
Only four others are with me, but then it stops a couple of times within an hour and fills up. Condensation coats the windows as, for some reason, there is no heating. What could be seen through the opaque glass soon changes as we go from the urban architecture of Xiamen, past a large container port, across massive complex intersections and finally into the open countryside, to end up on a small road made of poured concrete that slowly climbs into the hills.
It is an uneventful, three-hour trip. The conductor lets me off at the main tulou complex at Goutou, where tourists get to experience a sanitized version of the Hakka dwellings. It's now 11.00 AM and still cold enough to make my breath visible.
At the large information centre, the toilets are big and very clean, and they make a good changing room. After getting wrapped up in my warm cycling gear, and getting a corn on the cob from one of the vendors outside, I set off to find the back road marked on my map. It's only a couple of minutes before my wheels turn directly north and begin rolling slowly up a narrow hill. The tour has finally begun.
OK, it isn’t part of the actual Long March route, but seeing a few sights isn’t going to hurt as I make my way north to Ruijin, the Red’s main administrative centre back in the early 1930s.
The road is quiet and consists of concrete poured in bays a few metres long, making it a little bumpy for motorists. It's great for riding, however, and the faintly corrugated surface means that the few cars that do appear aren’t speeding along.
The screen shots of Google Maps on my tablet get used. It takes me a while to get used to them, but I manage to navigate my way at minor intersections and through one or two little villages like Guzhu and Dadecun.
There are circular tulou dotted around the hilly landscape and it's very tempting to venture off the route and explore them. After stopping to take a photo of a pair, a guy on a motorbike pulls up and tells me to go down and have a better look. It's a great suggestion.
A stream separates the two round buildings from the rest of the village of Xiaqi, which amounts to a just handful of other houses. I ride through the entrance of the nearest three-storey tulou and a few people are clearly going about their business: a woman is washing pots in what appears to be a café while an elderly man sits on a low stool looks into the middle distance.
After taking a couple of snaps, a middle-aged man asks me a few standard question and I ask him if there is anything to eat. He beckons me over to where the woman has just finished scrubbing a wok and ushers me into a 3m by 3m room which has one round table and a few plastic stools, then brings out a metal pot of rice and some cold dishes of veg and meat, before whisking them off the table and outside, where they are stir-fried in a couple of minutes.
It is a yummy early lunch. Mr Hospitality then pours me a shot glass full of something stored in a glass jar. It has the colour of honey and something like a root coiled in the bottom. I'm apprehensive, but it tastes wonderful, like an aged whiskey. Then we have tea, which he says is top notch, served in dinky porcelain cups.
It's at this point I suddenly remember that a few of my students have strongly advised me to ask the price of dishes before ordering, or I’ll simply get ripped off. Not here. My offer of payment is emphatically waved away - the meal is on the house.
A 17-year-old high school student is then brought into the room. He can speak a little English and is designated a translator. Mr. Hospitality is his uncle and the family wants to know about me. And I want to learn something about them.
It turns out the last foreign visitor stopped here seven years ago and the circular building is 60 years old, but to me it looks much older and I tell the boy he can say exactly the same about me. We venture up the bare stairs to take a few snaps. The wooden rails, floors, posts and walls have a nice patina and there's nothing pretensions or touristy about it. It's their home, and a beautiful one at that.
By now a group of about 20 villagers have gathered and as I pedal off back to the road taking me east, they stand and wave me off, right till I round a corner.
After a few minutes I meet a bigger road and turn north and within a hundred metres a sign says it's the X562, when I expected to find the X607. But as it takes me north it doesn’t seem too much to worry about.
The X562 goes up and up. The inclines seem steep and even with my new low gear I have to walk some sections and with the low temperature, my glasses keep steaming up from all the exertion.
As the clock ticks away and the invisible sun gets lower, it suddenly dawns on me that I’ve forgotten to pack my sleeping pad. The rest of the camping gear is in the front panniers, but not that one crucial item. Without it it’ll be a very chilly and probably sleepless night laying directly on hard ground. A guesthouse is needed and it's already five o'clock by the time my wheels roll over the top of the climb.
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There's a nice drop and eventually another one-street village which doesn't seem to offer up much accommodation-wise, but I decide to ask around anyway.
A few young women are grouped outside a small shop that sells red decorations for the upcoming New Year, and it occurs to me they're students back home for the big holiday, and that there's a good chance they'll be able to speak a bit of English.
It turns out I'm right on all counts.
They point back to a humble building when I ask about a guesthouse. Its open ground floor is full of bags of cement and it doesn’t appear promising or very salubrious. They say the owner lives nearby and she's duly summoned from across the street and shows me and my young entourage of eight the upstairs room. It has three beds that are clean and look quite new. There's a duvet. The rate is 80rmb – about 8 quid, or 12 bucks. I'm in luck.
Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 49 km (30 miles)
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