For a long time Chris had wanted to go out into the province south of us here in ZheJiang and explore a bit, especially as he wanted to find some Chinese traditional TuLou, or Earth Houses, round houses that served as small estates, housing many families and providing a safe and defendable space with huge 5 story high walls！ We saw some pictures on the internet a few months ago and read about them in my guide book and so decided to go to find them!
We got to the bus station mentioned in the guide and asked for two tickets to roughly the right area as mentioned in the guide book, the guidebook however said we would need to change bus, but this bus seemed to go straight there! As we boarded the bus it was seriously full, Chris found a seat at the back and I tried to ask the bus driver to tell us when we arrived, he agreed, but by this time the bus was full so I had to sit right at the front, next to an old chinese man. As soon as I sat down he started chatting to me, and he was very nice, and obviously friends with the bus conductor woman, after half an hour they changed places and I was sat next to her, and again I explained where we were going, and what we wanted to see, and she understood and said she would help us out!
The bus journey was pretty long, another 5 hour job, and took us out of the town into the country and into pretty rural countryside. We stopped off for a rest half way at a fruit seller and after the toilet break (a small shack out back with 2 holes per gender and no privacy, with an outside tap for hand washing) I had a look around and saw the most bananas I had seen in one place! madness!
Back on the bus and starting to wind into the mountains we saw a few of the elusive tulou buildings and some pretty sights, at one point we stopped halfway up a big hill and the driver got off, I also got up to stretch my legs and saw he was filling the buses water tank from a hose, he tried to explain that on these bad roads he wanted some more weight over the rear wheels, and also to dampen the suspension a bit! Now leaking water we headed off again and an hour or so later drove through a lovely tulou town.
This was the town Chris had mentioned and so we prepared to get off...and were promptly whisked out of town again without stopping! I mentioned it and the guide explained that was the expensive tourist town, we didn't want to go there, she would help us out! 15 minutes later the bus stopped on a small bridge and we were asked to get off, along with two other foreigners we had seen at the back of the bus, turns out they also wanted to go to see the TuLou.
The bus conductor woman got on her phone and said a car would come to meet us and she promptly stood and waited ten minutes, stopping the whole bus full of people, to make sure the car did indeed come and get us, she was very nice and soon we had been loaded into a car and driven away, one problem, in our conversation I had explained I wanted to see TuLou, and she had said she would help, but hadn't explained to me exactly where we were going or what we were doing, or who this man and car was, or where they were taking us!
I know Chris would be ok with a mystery exploration tour but the two other foreigners who I accidentally swept up into my plan (I guess she thought we were together) and dragged along into the mystery tour, and to make matters worse he was driving away from the village we had driver through!
15 minutes later we arrived in a small village between some mountains and the driver told us we had arrived. Getting out he asked if we wanted a hotel, and if we wanted a hotel proper or to sleep in a TuLou. when he said sleep in a tulou he managed to make it sound the most uninviting place in the world, but when Chris headed his eyes lit up, He had said before he wanted to try to stay in one and he we were being offered it!
We went for the TuLou and the other couple also agreed, with more than a little trepidation!
With that we were decided and the man took us over the road and into a huge Tulou in the middle of the village, inside he showed us into the middle and told us we would have to wait for the guy with the keys.
The TuLou is a huge circular building, the outside having rows of small windows quite high of the ground and in total the TuLou must have been at least 20 meters high with four floors and around 100 smallish rooms with a huge open central courtyard. There was a big old wooden door in with a large sliding bolt across it and in the centre of the Tulou some low buildings and a small prayer space. Back in the day the single door was used to stop bandits and create a safe space inside for the tea stores and the children to play. Now however the population has dwindled fast as all of the young move out into houses nearby and the huge urban migration of China. Our TuLou had only a small population of 5-7 old women on the ground floor pottering around and living as they had their whole lives I imagine.
Eventually the guide came back with some keys and took us up to the second floor, the stairs were wooden and we were asked to please go one at a time to be careful, especially with heavy bags, and looking over we saw a suspicious gap where a 5 meter section had gone, when asking him what happened he shrugged and said it had just fallen down, very reassuring!
We eventually came to our rooms and after explaining we didn't want to all be in the same room we managed to secure a seperate room for them and for us, he explained that the rooms had been cleaned and although there was no toilet facilities inside the building the owner also had a shop over the road and we could use his toilet while the TuLou was open, however the TuLou was shut at 9pm and barred from inside so we would have to go before we went in, and then wait until 6am the next morning for the old women to open again. If we needed a break in the night every floor was equiped with a bucket at the end of the hall for our convenience!
We were still up for it and surprisingly so were the couple, turns out the girl was Italian and the guy was a Londoner, they were a couple out travelling and she had studied Mandarin at University and so comes out every year to get some practise in! After the tour came the price, he started at £5 a night but we bargained down to £3, a big more reasonable!
After we had dropped our stuff and settled in a bit we wanted to head out and see some TuLou, after bargaining with the driver for a bit we agreed on £18 for all of us to take a few hours with the driver around some especially nice local TuLou, we jumped into a different car with a young guy and some awesome Chinese dance music and drove off!
First we arrived at a hill and he told us to head on up the hill and take a look from the top, a little confused we carried on up past a toilet block to a tall yellow observation point build on the top of the hill, no signs on name showed what it was but from the top we really did get a good view of the valley and all of the TuLou around, we took some pictures and then shot off again to see various different tulou, big ones, small ones, new ones, old ones, one had even been redone out as a luxury hotel! It was nice but not quite as atmospheric and fun as our bashed up old place!
After seeing enough TuLou to sink a battleship we headed back to town and grabbed a meal in the guys restaurant, after dinner we had half an hour before curfew so walked around town in the evening light and chatted with the other couple, bought some souvenirs and some beer and snacks and went back to the hotel with 20 minutes to spare. Unfortunately they had already closed the gate and we were locked out, doh!
We knocked and the guys from the restaurant heard us, came out and got on their mobile, before long the bolt was drawn back and a tiny old lady let us in again, after we were in she explained we could easily let ourselves in and out by simple lifting this huge wooden beam and drawing it back, which she promptly did herself! Not bad for someone I would guess was over 80!
We headed up and all retired to our room to drink beer and chat and had a lovely time. At about half 11 suddenly a large mouse ran across the floor, got to the door, scratched it a bit and dived back under the bed, much to our amusement! an hour or so later they headed to bed as they had an early start in the morning and we got some sleep too, not too uncomfortable really, but Chris does hate the hard beds they prefer our here!
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