You might remember from my first couple of posts about Xiamen (IIVB) that we’d been a little underwhelmed by it all, we’d got the distinct impression of just another Chinese city which happened to be on the coast and was largely inhabited by a temporary heaving mass of the dreaded bus tour groups.

Well, on day 3 we’d done the tulou tour, which had been awesome and as we woke on the 4th morning (a tuesday as it happens) we were a bit stuck for what to do next. In the end we decided to just pop for a look at Nanputuoshan temple, which was very close to our hotel and had been recommended by Tina.

The first thing we saw on arriving at the temple was a large pond with quite a number of people looking into the water. We wandered over for a look and ended up spending about half an hour there, the thing was positively humming with turtles (probably terrapins to be exact), I had no idea it was even possible for so many to survive in one place. The floating turtle coop in the centre of the pond was underwater due to the sheer weight of turtles, stacked 3 or 4 deep on top and everywhere you looked in the water turtles swam and I was surprised to see that somehow large catfish had managed to survive until adulthood and were competing for food alongside the turtles.

H grabbed some berries from a nearby bush and started dropping them in the water attracting a large group of turtles over towards us, several families started doing the same, the kids were having a great time pinging berries off the back of the turtles. After a couple of minutes H pointed to a group of turtles and shouted LOOK LOOK, I looked over to see that one of the large turtles had grabbed one of the baby turtles by the head and was pulling on it like crazy. Within a couple of seconds its head was off and then the other turtles all joined in tearing chunks off wherever they could, all the while being pelted with berries by the unimpressed watching kids. We decided it was time to take a look at the temple..

Not impressed with the berries the turtles quickly turned to cannibalism

Somehow we managed to get in without paying, there was a gate where people were walking through and we just kind of followed, then we noticed attendants at the gate who weren’t really doing anything as we walked past and that other people seemed to be holding tickets, it was all a bit late by this point though, we were already through, unchallenged.

The temple was nice enough, but having just been on a trip to Beijing with my family and visited the Forbidden City (for like the 4th time..) and the Summer Palace we were having fits of deja vu and quickly lost interest. The arrival of a couple of coach tours quickly made our mind up and after playing around throwing coins into the mini-pagodas (it never gets boring..) and taking a few photos we headed back to the hotel for lunch and a nap (well we were on holiday you know…..)

After a couple of hours solid nap we scanned the map and seeing where the majority of attractions were we promptly decided to head in the opposite direction, right across the island to the beach on the other side for a walk and hopefully a bit of P and Q. We jumped in a taxi outside the hotel, pointed to the beach on the map and headed off.

He dropped us off seemingly in the middle of nowhere on the side of a minor highway which followed the coast, he insisted that this was the spot we had pointed to but I noted that the point coincided with the only pedestrian we’d seen for a good few km and who happened to be trying to flag down a taxi. H had a few choice words with the driver but I could already see the beach and what I saw looked good (which I pointed out to H as she finally paused for breath) so we paid the driver and walked down to the beach.

The beach was nice, really nice, clean sand, palm trees at the edge of the beach and we almost had it to ourselves, there were literally only 3 or 4 people as far as the eye could see.

Looking North

We decided to head south, back towards civilisation as we weren’t sure how easy it would be to find a taxi later on, the flip-flops were off and we walked along the waters edge collecting shells for my niece. We had great fun standing in the surf, sinking slowly into the sand as the retreating waves leached the sand from under our soles, I couldn’t believe that H had never done this before, I guess beach holidays are primarily a Western obsession..

The beach eventually became pretty rocky but there was a really nice terrace over the rocks which you could follow round the coast, the tide was out though and we managed to find our way through without climbing up.

In the rocks we came across rock pools, I wanted to take a look but H thought they were pointless until we we sneaked up one and saw a large crab disappearing into a crack in the rock. We must have stayed there for 20 minutes, lying as still as possible watching the crabs slowly reappear, along with shrimps and small fish, I figure the last time I’d done this must have been almost 30 years ago, on our annual caravan holiday at Crantock (near Newquay) in Cornwall.

It started getting very rocky at one point and we ended up having to go up onto the terrace, leaving the rocks to a group of locals out collecting shellfish. After 100m or so things opened up again and we came down onto a beach, we could see groups of people ahead, apparently we were getting closer to civilisation.

The groups were all wedding parties, posing ridiculously to the instructions of the bored photographers, surely they have bets with each other on what ridiculous things they can make the couple do? One group in particular (who I wish I’d photographed) were posing behind two bottles of bright green Mountain Dew inserted so their necks crossed in the sand, with the photographer pretty much lying on the ground to get the bottles in the foreground. Surely ANYTHING would be better than mountain dew, even two bottles of Tsingtao if they can’t afford some fizz??

We walked another kilometre or so until we reached a bundle of restaurants / bars on the side of the beach and decided to stop for a drink. Basically all of them were closed for refurbishment though, I guess this area must get quite busy during the main holiday season.. We were pretty tired by this point though (walking through soft sand is surprisingly taxing what what) and ended up just taking a taxi back to the hotel for a well needed shower.

That night we had an easy evening eating seafood and had an early night to bed with plans to rise early for a long morning walk around the botanical gardens next to our hotel before checking out at midday and then flying back mid-afternoon. Well, that all sounded like a good idea but we ended up sleeping in till 10am and by the time we’d packed and eaten breakfast we only had around an hour to see the botanical gardens. We nearly didn’t go at all, it was tempting just to sit in the room and watch tv for an hour (my preference over botanical gardens), but we ended up going anyway on H’s insistence.

Now, normally if someone suggested going to a botanical garden I’d look at them as if they’d just asked me if I’d like to jump off a high bridge and then ask if all the bars were closed or something, I guess marriage has tempered me though and H really wanted to see it so I relented and agreed to take her, let me tell you I’ve completely changed my mind now and I’m ALL OVER botanical gardens, they were awesome!

We barely had any time once we got there, just chance to walk round the very pretty lake and see a couple of other areas (bamboo area, rainforest etc) and then we had to leave. The place was pretty much deserted and we were pretty much by ourselves walking through dense, very picturesque greenery. At one point we heard music and found an elderly couple playing flutes in a shelter by the banks of the lake (they didn’t want their picture taken). The downside is that the place was alive with mosquitos and I must have forgotten to apply “qu wen” because I got bitten to death (not literally). Worst of all, because I was wearing flipflops my feet were bitten five or six times, which made walking in shoes agony for the best part of the next week..

As we walked round the pond to the building in the pic above we could hear an extremely loud woman talking, when we walked inside we found a middle aged woman pretty much screaming into the phone while trying to catch frogs in a smaller pond inside, presumably the noise stunned them because she’d already got a carrier bag with five or six sizeable specimens for her dinner pot..

H amongst the jungle creepers

Stripey Bamboo

Lazy tree which just can't be bothered with smaller branches and just grows berries straight out of the trunk. Either that or it's got scabies

We were really sorry we didn’t have more time in the end, we must have only seen a fifth of the gardens and there was a really cool looking cactus area on the far side. It was just too far away though, so we made-do with a slow walk round the lake and wandered back to the hotel to check out.

Hmm, 5 pounds to the first person who asks if I’ve “gone gay”..

On the way to Taxia the driver told us the real problem (as he understood it). I mentioned on a previous post that apparently the villagers only get paid 200 rmb per year to endure their houses becoming tourist attractions and apparently at Taxia they’ve decided that enough is enough and are trying to get this increased by stopping the cooperation with the local government. In return Taxia is reported as closed by just about everyone until this is all resolved.

So, there were no roadworks and we basically had Taxia to ourselves for an hour… Unfortunately it had started raining quite heavily and we were already quite tired from all the walking at Tianluokeng and Yuchanglou so we didn’t explore as much as we might. Anyway, here are some pics:

Taxia is basically a large picturesque village of tulou located either side of a valley river

the tulou were largely uncommercialised

someone's going to have to help me with translation again!

Oh, it’s worth mentioning that apparently Taxia is famous for it’s village temple and half moon pool, maybe it was the weather but it didn’t really interest me and thus, no photos, plenty of pics on the web if you’re desperate for a peek though!

So that was pretty much it, we got back into the car, tired and slightly wet and started the long 3 hour journey back to Xiamen just in time for the seafood I mentioned last week.

All in all it was a damn good day out., I’d definitely recommend the trip if you’re heading down that way, avoid taking a group tour though!!

These are quite a way from Xiamen (150km or so) so we actually considered a group tour for a short while, I blame a momentary lapse of sensibility, but after looking at their schedule we thankfully decided otherwise. They were all something like 3 hours of travel followed by a rapid visit of various tulou with about 10 or 15 minutes at each, an hour for lunch, then 3 hours back to Xiamen again.

Actually deciding which tulou to visit was the first headache, there’s something like 20,000 of these traditional Hakka houses in Fujian province, but we opted for Tianluokeng, which is a World Heritage Site and probably the most famous (as well as being a national AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA tourist site or something like that)

So H looked for a driver and eventually found us one at the reasonable price of 750rmb for the whole day (bearing in mind the distance to be traveled), which was obviously considerably more than the group tour, but without the rushed schedule, stops at silk factories/jade museums and megaphones, we could take our own time and decide our own agenda.

The guy picked us up at 8am and we set off for Nanjing County (not that Nanjing). In the few minutes before H took over the entire rear seat and fell asleep she had plenty of time to figure out the driver, “he is too pale” she said, “he must have some kind of disease”, which is Chinese for “I wish I was that pale”. Diseased or not he could drive reasonably well enough but had a dreadful taste in music which H soon put an end to as she was nodding off.

Anyway, let’s forget about the journey, nothing of interest happened apart from to say that it was a loooong journey. After 2 hours we started climbing and I figured we were nearly there, but we just kept going and going on a road thankfully devoid of coach tours (we’d timed the trip well for the first weekend after schools went back and this was the monday morning).

Roadworks on the way to Tianluokeng

We finally arrived and paid our 90RMB entrance fee to the Tulou area and continued driving for another 20 minutes or so before the driver finally pulled over and indicated the viewing point across the road. We got out for the first view of Tianluokeng.

Tulou are either round or square. The story goes that when the US first sent up the spy satellites they became convinced that China had constructed thousands of missile silos all over Fujian, all ready for it to kick off in Taiwan..

It’s a beautiful place alright, but here’s a quick question, how do you take a place like this and make it even more beautiful? Any idea?? Well, thankfully the local government has given it some thought and installed multicoloured flashing lights which they turn on at sundown, you’re kicking yourself now aren’t you…

I didn’t hang around to see the place looking like a cheap childs toy but here’s a pic I stole from the intrawebs, click to make it bigger

Anyway, I took a few pics just as a minibus tour group arrived to pose for photos (in orange baseball caps of course). We left and walked down to the village.

A little bit Hobbit no?

We could hear music blaring from the village from a long way off and it wasn’t until after we arrived and I snapped this pic that we realised the villagers were holding a funeral (for one of the elders who had passed away at 83 we found out later).

I didn’t take any more photos of the funeral proceedings (as tempting as it was, but it didn’t feel right, I did take a pic of the marching band though) but it was a fascinating affair, there were a group of about 15 villagers dressed completely in white (complete with KKK style hoods) and one girl dressed in a similar outfit made of sack cloth. The music came from a brass marching band in uniform who led the group round and round the coffin (centre left of pic) and the table of food offerings and then round the village.

How on earth did they end up with these instruments instead of traditional chinese erhu etc? and the uniforms??

After all this finished we wandered over to the tulou where all this was happening and found it was hosting a funeral banquet inside, we didn’t think they’d appreciate visitors at the time so we moved on to one of the others.

All the tulou are based around a well

Tulou are always a number of floors high and only have windows on the upper floor (for protection from bandits apparently), the ground floor is typically the kitchen, with bedrooms and food storage upstairs

One interesting thing we found out is that everyone in this village has the same surname, Huang. A proud villager told us that their bloodline goes back 24 generations at the village and their ancestor was a great emperor (or something along those lines). The same went for the next village, they all shared another common name (which I forgot to write down..)

Sun-dried flowers, presumably a local cooking ingredient

As I was taking this pic I noticed an impatient guy behind me from the tour bus, as I moved away he quickly snapped a pic and then sprinted to the next Tulou, they spent a total of 20 minutes at this Tulou cluster, that's 4 minutes per Tulou.. We spent closer to a couple of hours, chatting to the locals and eating lunch in of their places (20 kuai each, for reference their food is very salty, "so that we eat less" according to cynical H)

One of the locals we chatted to told us that the government gives each resident of Tianluokeng 200 rmb per year as payment for allowing the tour groups in. At 90 rmb per head entry fee that’s a pretty low cut of the profits.. It’s not surprising that some of the tulou are very commercialised with every resident setting up market stalls inside selling all manner of tourist tat, from local tea to paintings of the tulou, to paperweights, fridge magnets, wooden cars etc etc.. It’s a shame because it really spoils the atmosphere, but then who can blame them..

The two top tulou were very commercialised, every resident had set up their own market stall inside the tulou. Apparently this tulou has only been on the tour group route for about 4 years and it still manages to feel like a real working village, god knows what it's going to be like in a couple more years..

On the way out of the village we spotted this jolly chap in a shack of his own, we stopped to say hello and asked what he was doing, "making baiju" he replied. We asked if we could take a look

Baijiu-still running in the background over a log fire, he reckons he makes pretty reasonable baijiu but didn't offer to sell us any, there's still an innocence about the place

So we set off satisfied for the next tulou, but not before stopping further down the hill at the appointed area to take pictures from the approved platform.

More tomorrow (or maybe the day after) on the other tulou we visited, too many pics for one post…

Anyway, today we hired a driver to take us out to see some Tulou close to Zhanzhou, we’re currently en-route. I’d tell you where but google maps is all in Chinese and H is asleep and not in the mood for helping (to be fair she probably would have been until the 3rd or 4th time i pushed strands of her hair up her nostrils, now i’m in no doubt that she’s not to disturbed until we arrive..). Anyway, it’s close to some palm trees:

The weather forecast is pretty bad but fingers crossed that the rain holds off, will hopefully get lots of pics to post when I get back!

The only thing I know about Xiamen, it is very beautiful, from talking to colleagues so far is that you have to say “it is very beautiful” every time the word Xiamen (it is very beautiful) is mentioned.

Here’s a pic of the scenery I just shot from the taxi, so far so good!

If I learn anything else exciting in the next few days I’ll be sure to update you.

That is all.

Edit: more from the ferry to Gulang Yu at Xiamen (it us very beautiful)

Here’s some random photos from the trip:

Eating great home cooking at H's parents! Although after eating there for every lunch and dinner for the last 5 days we went straight to Di Shui Dong when we got back last night!

Helping H burn money for the dead, it goes straight into their heavenly bank acount innit.

"Gold" and bundles of "bank notes" to be burnt for the dead. Each "bank note" is worth 50,000,000, apparently the currency of heaven is Vietnamese Dong.

The official village dragons, they come to dance at each house to bring luck for the next year (or something like that), the neighbours watch closely to see how much money you give them, this is a sign of how successful you've been in the last year, anything less than 1000rmb is viewed as a disaster..

On the back of the official dragons come all the local beggars and money swindlers etc, most of them with homemade dragons, it was pretty much like being in a zombie movie with the sea of arms waving through the gates at regular periods through the day. Apparently at CNY everyone who turns up gets something, nobody gets turned away, so they come, in numbers, at one point I noticed a group of guys on motorbikes going round begging at the house gates, so blatantly not poor.... The only thing you have to watch out for is that they tend to keep coming back, several times during the day, they just do laps of the whole block....

“Yes, of course” I replied, “are you proud to be Chinese?”

“Yes” he said, “why are you proud to be British?”

“I’m not sure” I said, “why are you proud to be Chinese?”

“Because we have the atom bomb”

I haven’t got a clue what happened to the third one, looks like she was swiped with the toilet brush.

(Click to make them biggerer)

Anyway, I saw talk about these watches on watchuseek and just had to have one (and they’re not easy to track down). It’s made by Seagull (Tianjin Seagull, different from the Shanghai Seagull camera company) and is a reissue of their 1963 chinese airforce watch. It seems that demand is high, I had to wait months to receive it, worth the wait though! My pictures don’t really do it justice (the best I can do in my hotel with a P&S and a desk lamp) but take a look at the watchuseek pics above to get a better idea.

Display back:

The movement is Seagull ST19 (handwound chronograph), the seagull movements are pretty much copies of ETA movements as far as I know, and by all accounts they are a pretty good match in terms of performance. Apparently the text reads “China: Tianjin Watch Factory” although apparently they’re made at the plant in Shenzhen.

My only minor gripe is that I’d prefer something a little bigger for my chunky wrist, at 37mm it’s a little on the small side of what I’d normally wear.

I just need to find a decent strap now, it’s still on the khaki NATO strap it was supplied on, anyone know any decent shops in Shanghai for straps?

EDIT:

Oh, by the way, Seagull watches are stocked at Tourneau in Xintiandi (not this model though), I took a look, their range is certainly premium priced but not really to my taste, they do have a reasonably priced tourbillon though.