In Hakka Country

On the second last leg of my trip now. I came to Fujian a few days ago, Xiamen to be exact. I have to say, it is a lovely city, nicer than Dalian and it has history and culture, which Dalian lacks. If they all spoke Mandarin, then I'd very much consider moving down there. Then again the weather isn't to my liking. I'd be burned to a crisp, even in so-called "winter".

So, in Xiamen, we visited Gulang Yu, which is a small island full of colonial buildings. Totally different feel from the city, and most of China for that. The person who was showing me around is a friend of my Chinese teacher. That afternoon, her father and this other guy drove us around Xiamen island. Lovely beaches with palm-lines roads. I could have been in California, if it wasn't for the Chinese driving! They then brought us out for a big meal and drove me back to the hotel. Aren't Chinese people great? They didn't even know me from Adam and they did all that!

The other thing I wanted to see in Fujian was the 土楼 (Tulou), which are really old round dwelling places of the Hakka ethnic group. A few hundred people could live in these places. I took advantage of Chinese driving "skills" this morning. The woman in the hotel reckoned there wasn't enough time to get to the bus station to catch the bus to Yongding (where the Tulou are). I reckoned it could be done and the crazed taximan didn't let me down! This dude should be entering in trials for the Chinese GP next year!

OK, for anyone who is interested in going to see the Tulou, here is some advice: Allegedly, Yongding (永定) has the biggest amount of them, but there are also some in Nanjing (南靖, not the famous Nanjing in Jiangsu). Anyways, to get from Xiamen to Yongding, you must take a bus. The earliest I got was 8:10am. Got into Yongding around 12:30. They had a minibus out to the Tulou at 13:20. It's around an hour and a half to get out there on shitty country roads. I was also getting a bit iffy when some people were bringing live poultry onto the bus. Hmmmm, bird flu!

Anyway, since my luggage was in the bus station, which closed at 5:30, I didn't have much time at the Tulou, since the return minibus was leaving around 3:20. Now, I got scammed a bit. I hadn't had the chance to do any research (any Lonely Planet had feck-all info), so I ended up going with some touts. However, I have a feeling, there is actually some official tourist place with some Tulou, as the tout dude did have a ticket for it. Either way, I didn't have enough time to see all that shit. I did get to see some Tulou, which were pretty cool. Two of them that I saw were allegedly 500 and 1000 years old.

Anyway, so if you want to get the most out of the Tulou, you can either go to Nanjing (don't know what they are like) or spend longer time here, maybe staying over near the Tulou. Nanjing is better connected than Yongding. The last bus out of here to any big place is around 3pm! I luckily got a train ticket to Guangzhou, which leaves at 11:15 this evening.

This little place (Yongding) is great. Such a slower pace of life. And the kids are friendly. Three little fellas showed me to this Internet cafe! You wouldn't get that in Dublin. All kids are chaperoned to and from school by parents in fear of kidnappings!