The reason for visiting this part of Fujian is to see the enormous circular earth buildings or "Tulou" built by the local Hakka people. I arrived in Fujian province at something like 5am to luckily be "preyed" on at the train station by a guy who could help me both to get to where I needed to go and give me a place to stay. The guy turned out to be quite helpful and the pricing somewhat reasonable. I ended up staying in his guest house - one of the protected and historical tulou buildings, albeit a square one not one of the famed circular ones. The day I arrived the weather was chilly and raining fairly steadily. I took a car around for the day with a group of Chinese tourists and we had the places mostly to oursleves - the bad weasther was a blessing in disguise. I think I will let the pictures do the talking but the places are really quite amazing. Some of the largest are 50+ metres across and can house 600-1000 people. Some of the buildings are hundreds of years old and still being lived in. The earth outer wall and wooden inner room construction is very interesting for an engineer like me - I was fascinated. After a day and a half taking photos it was time to move on.
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