20250906 Saturday, September 6, 2025 Shenzhen to Zhangzhou by High Speed Rail, Fujian Tulous
We scarcely had a chance to dip our toes into being back aboard a cruise ship before we had to abandon ship to go inland on the Fujian Treasures overland excursion. There are 3 UNESCO World Heritage sites there and we intend to see all of them.
We packed our small roller carry on bags and left the ship at 6:45am after a light continental breakfast in the Living Room. Today we go from Ship to bus, to high speed train, to bus and then to hotel.
Our prior experience taking the high speed rail from Shenyang to Beijing with Daqing was very helpful in making us seasoned rail travelers.
Pineapples
Fishponds
Rice Paddies
The train was cruising at 250kmph or 150mph. The seating was basically the same as on an economy class air liner. There was no complementary snack service like we had going from Shenyang to Beijing in First Class. There was just the trolley lady and a small snack bar at the front of the car. Hans, our guide got us prepared for disembarkation with the precision of paratroopers out of a Cargomaster over a tight drop zone because the train only stops for 2-1/2 minutes at each stop.
The train station at Zhangzhou was equally modern, clean and efficient as Shenzhen’s. We loaded up into 38 passenger air conditioned tourist coach. There are 18 in our tour group. Unlike in Europe, these are not the white Viking branded coaches seen all over Europe. But it was a comfortable coach with fully operational air conditioning, which was greatly appreciated because the temperature was 95° with 93% humidity.
Hans is our Viking English speaking guide/translator. Hans isn’t his real name, but he adopted it because his German class teacher forced everyone to pick a new name. Chinese is his first language, but he worked for years on the Viking River Cruises Mandarin language ships. He travels with us on the ship but works with local guides. We were introduced to Chen, who is a resident Fujian Province guide who will be with us while we are in Fujian Province. Chen is a local expert but doesn’t speak English.
Our first stop was a restaurant Cao Xiang Lou in Zhangzhou for a family styled 15 course lunch feast heavy on seafood including a whole steamed grouper, sea cucumber, razor clams, abalone and shrimp. Beef, pork and chicken were also represented.
With full bellies, it was easy to pass the 2 hour long drive from Zhangzhou to the Nanjing Tulou Scenic World Heritage site by napping.
As we approached the site a new agrogeographic feature started to show up in steep hillsides. These were terraced tea bushes. Fujian Province grows a lot of tea on otherwise difficult to utilize land.
There was a huge tourism welcome site where we had to swap our 40 seater bus for a much smaller 24 person bus because the villages where these Tulous are situated are in steep mountain slopes and valleys where the roads are narrow and frequently have tight turns and switchbacks.
There were several Tulou structures with the mudbrick construction, circular shape and tiled roofs on the hillsides as we wove our way into the mountainous area. Our first stop was at an overlook of the Tianloukeng Tulou cluster, which is a historic village with three round Tulous, one oblong one and in rectangular one in The center. It is certainly a curious and wonderous sight surrounded by dense vegetation in a steep mountain valley.
Our second stop was at a lower viewpoint of the same complex. While it may have looked like a cluster of UFO’s (or the CIA worried they looked like missile silos), from below, they look like a castle.
These Tulous were constructed by Hakka Chinese, who are a subgroup of Han Chinese who migrated from the northern plains, often refugees displaced by wars. They settled the marginal lands between the fertile plains and coastal areas which had already been populated by earlier waves of Han migrations. The Hakka built these fortress homes perhaps inspired by the violence that drove them from their original homes.
Tulous are frequently circular but can be other shapes. They are constructed from rammed earth and mud bricks reinforced with pebbles, bamboo and other found material. The outer walls can approach 2 meters in thickness, tapering slightly as the are built up. They are usually 3-5 stories in height. They have a steeply sloped shingle roof with a big overhang to protect the mud brick sides from erosion by rainfall.
Customarily, the first floor is a kitchen area. The second floor is a grainery and food storage area. The third and higher floors are living areas but the very top floors are used for storage of other personal items.
In particular, the Hakka would purchase or build their own coffins and store these in the highest places in the home. This is because their word for coffin happens to sound exactly the same as the word for a high government official. So putting your coffin as high as possible is a way to assure achieving the highest social status possible in life.
In Disney’s live action Mulan happens to be set in a tulou, which made for some interesting and fantastic cinematography, but this is merely a Disney fantasy because Mulan’s story dates to the 5th Century, while the earliest Tulous date to the 11th Century.
Our third stop was the Yuchang building, built in 1308 by 5 families. It has 5 stories totaling 18.2 meters in height and is 54 meters in diameter. It has 5 stairs cases- one for each family. A Tulou is divided around its circumference into the family units.
This is an amazing building to walk into for its scale and vibrancy. The courtyard is full of positive energy and life. As you look all around from inside, the walls seem to lean in towards you in an inviting manner, although tourists are not allowed to go beyond the ground level central courtyard.
Several things were being dried in the sunlit courtyard floor including fish and vegetable products. Fruit and produce stalls and even a baby playpen can be found around the periphery, as well as several shops.
This was the first place we encountered vendors. There were only a handful, and they were generally friendly with smiles, but they can be persistent. They were nowhere as aggressive as they were in Egypt though. There were a couple who were quite resourceful. One was taking photos of us, print it up and put it in a nice folio with photos of the Tulou on the cover. It was hard to refuse them for all the effort they put into making a sale. They wanted ¥10. We really didn’t want to have to take home another item, but when we counter offered ¥5 ($0.70) she accepted and was happy to make the sale. She had also taken Janet’s iPhone and showed how to take some nice out of the ordinary shots of the Tulou. She was a little like the camel drivers in Egypt who take your phone out of your hand and take all sorts of silly poses, and expect a big tip for the expert photography.
Our guides did purchase some local red bananas, which take 3 years to mature, rather than the usual 1 year for yellow bananas. This supposedly makes them sweeter, although it was hard to tell without a side by side taste test. The other unusual offering was fresh passion fruit. The lady vendor would simply cut the top off the fruit, which looks something between a lemon and a grapefruit, revealing the pulpy seeds inside. You then use a spoon to scoop it out and straight into your mouth. It is sweet with a citrus smell but very mild taste, but the seeds crunch like pop rocks and are easy to chew and swallow without effecting the taste.
Our final destination was an out of the way Tulou that has been converted into a 5 star hotel. To get to it, we had to drive along the river through what is called the Yin/Yang town because of the shape of the river and the hills the town is on forms the Yin/Yang symbol almost perfectly when viewed from the sky.
We then had to follow a small tributary of the river past a couple other Tulous in what is really a hidden gem. The outer wall of this Tulou has been modified by making it with used roofing tiles stacked compactly. This has also been used in some areas of the floor like a mosaic or parquet. There were misters on the roof which helped cool the courtyard by several degrees and the slight dripping off the roof into the courtyard added to a sense of mystique to the place.
We had a fantastic 10 course meal served with a floral tea and Hakka Rice Wine. One unusual but delicious preparation was Hakka Stuffed Tofu, which had a patty of pork sausage embedded within a small rectangle of Tofu. There was also an omelet with pickled Chinese vegetables that was memorable. They say the Hakka Rice Wine can get you pretty intoxicated because the sweetness conceals its alcohol content, but we found it almost too sweet. It was better mixed as a cocktail with the floral tea.
It was a long drive to the new hotel in Xiamen, on the coast, where the Viking Yi-Dun will arrive in 2 days. We made a brief stop at a Chinese truck stop. The men’s bathroom must have had 50 stalls. Even bigger than Buccie’s.
The Andaz is a very fancy business class hotel with an absolutely HUGE room. It looks like they have California King beds, which are two king beds knitted together. The bed must be 12’ wide. We could each lay cross wise on this mattress and still not touch.
Ben went for a swim in the huge outdoor pool which looks like a full 25m pool with at least 6 lanes. There is a shallow wading pool attached on one end, and a “hot tub” jetted pool on the other, although the water temperature of the “hot tub” is probably only 99ºF.
Tomorrow’s touring begins at 8:30am.
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