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Published: July 23rd 2012
Taxia Village
The river cut the village in two The hills around Luilian are really worth getting up early in the morning for. We set out to see Tulous at 7, the three of us, alice's father in Law, my mother and me, all on one motorbike. It's not that I haven't done triplets on a bike before; in college in Ahmedabad we do it all the time. There it's with other people who are just as crazy as me. But here it was going to be, a middle aged, jovial, heavily tanned Chinese man and my mother. And the funniest part was that I was the only one who was concerned about it. Even though I knew we intended to travel this way for a whole day, in rain or sunshine, village paths, gravel, paved areas, concreted roads, steep slopes, gentle meadows, yet I didn't quite believe we were acually going to do it.
Early in the morning, visibility wasn't more than about a hundred metres, the hills playing hide and seek in the mist. Our wish of being able to feel the breeze on our faces came true and the feeling was elevating. Our first stop was a picturesque village, Taxia which had a river flowing right
Temple
Beautiful coloured carving on the roof through it. Both sides of the river have tulous and other traditional homes. Small walkways and steps lead to a temple with beautiful coloured carvings on its roof and gate. Our motorcycle driver insisted that we pose in front of the temple; he took my camera from me and expertly managed to zoom to get a perfect shot while we stood there completely embarrassed. As we walked further around the village, he took us inside one of the tulou which was buzzing with life. The courtyard had been covered in part and women were cooking in one part of it while men were cutting meat somewhere else. The whole community seemed to be out, doing something or the other. Some of the elders were sitting right at the entrance busy writing some of their beautiful characters on red sheets of paper. Our driver cum guide also showed us the elaborate chimney system that their kitchen's had.
As we left the village of taxia, we entered some really beautiful sections of those hills. The river flowing right next to us and the three of us on the bike, far away from any other people. Next we stopped at a tulou
which was 5 storeys tall. There seemed to be quite a celebration going on. While i sat and sketched, mom made friends with a few people, bought some expensive tea and tried her hand at making a Chinese sweet.
After that we a series of other tulous, a square one, one built on a marsh, one with a school inside, all of them really lovely. Crossed some terraced rice fields and tea plantations. It even started to rain while we were on the road, trying to visit a certain cluster of tulous, but we just kept going. Our umbrellas upturned, but as long as the camera was safe under our driver's raincoat we just kept going.
By the end of the day we were really tired and sleepy. After having some warm and filling noodle soup we went to see the local women dancing to some modern Chinese tunes. Every evening these women collect after dinner and dance together. I've seen groups like these in Shanghai, Nanjing and now in Liulian as well. From Alice we got to know that all of these women are really happy about doing this, they swear by it, seems to be giving
them a lot of pleasure and happiness.
Next day we were supposed go to Xiamen by bus and then take a ferry to the island of Gulang yu. Unfortunately I fell ill that night and our trip had to be cut short. We left Liulian, came to Xiamen and flew back home to Shanghai.
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