City street, Xiamen

For the transportation from Hong Kong to Xiamen and Xiamen city tour, please refer to the tour of HKG14 for details. Today, we would like to lead you to explore Fujian province in depth, appreciating the Tu Buildings of Hakkas in Yong Ding, also named as "the UFO in the earth" or "the giant mushrooms' and visiting the starting city of "Marine Silk Route" - Quanzhou.

From Xiamen to Yongding, you can take a long-distance bus or a hard seat train. If you take bus, go to Xiamen Long-distance Bus Station (Add: 59# Hu Bin Nan Lu) to take the direct bus to Yong Ding. There are 4 to 5 buses running from 06:15 to 12:40. The transfer charge is CNY69.00 per person and it takes your about 4 hours to get there.

If you take train, the train number is K298/K299, which starts from Xiamen Railway Station at 17:07 and arrives in Yong Ding at 23:12. You are suggested stay in Yong Dong for one night to have a rest and make good preparations for your wonderful trip of the next day. (B)

Tu Buildings of Hakkas (also called Fujian Tu Buildings) distribute far and wide. The most famous buildings are centrally located in Yong Ding, Nan Jinx and Hua An. From Yong Ding Bus Station, you can take mini bus to all directions, but sometimes there is still a distance between the bus stop and those buildings. For saving time, we suggest you charter a taxi or autocycle to visit these unique Tu Buildings as much as you can. Generally, it costs you CNY200 to CNY250.00 per day to charter a car and CNY100.00 to CNY150 for chartering an autocycle.

Tu Buildings of Hakkas,Fujian Photo by CHINABOBLU

Suggested visiting routes:
First day - Yong Ding Hakkas Tu Buildings Custom and Culture Village (Complex Tu Buildings of Hong Keng)
Zheng Cheng Building (the Prince of Tu Buildings) -> Cheng Qi Building (The King of Tu Buildings) -> Hakkas Custom and Culture Museum

Second day - Nan Jinx Complex of Tu Buildings
Tian Luo Keng - > Yu Chang Building "Unsteady Building" -> Yan Xiang Buidling -> Huan Ji Building

Third day - Xia Yang Chu Xi Tu Buildings
Ji Qing Building -> Sheng Qing Building -> Shan Qing Building -> Geng Qing Building – Gong Qing Building

Accommodation: If you want to experience the Hakkas' life, you can stay in Yong Ding Tu Building or the Hakkas-style hostel, but the most rooms in these hostels does not have the private bath room. If you prefer to have a better place to stay, you'd better go back to Long Yan City. You can take bus from Yong Ding Bus Station, which costs you CNY20.00 net per person and the driving time is 1 and a half hours.

Mt. Wuyishan, Fujian

Our next destination is the historical culture city - Quanzhou. There is no direct bus from Yong Ding to Quanzhou, and you should go back to Long Yan City and then take the long-distance bus to Quan Zhou. It takes you 3 to 3.5 hours from Long Yan to Quanzhou and the transfer charge is CNY70.00 net per person.

As the starting point of the "Marine Silk Route" in the middle century, Quanzhou played a very important role in the communications of the East and West culture. It was named as "the biggest port of Orient" by the famous Italian traveler Marco Polo. Quanzhou has many temples of different religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Matsu, Islam, Christianism and even Manichean and Brahmanism. Different temples reflect different religions and belief, which also demonstrates culture and civilization of their people in this place. Let us take a city temples tour to feel the charming of this historical city.

Itinerary: Temple of Matsu -> Tu Men Street -> Qing Jing Mosque - > Temple of Guan Gong - > Q - > Kai Yuan Temple

Chinese festival celebration

Take bus number 24 or tourist special line 601 to reach the Temple of Matsu, it is free of charge and opens from 8:00 to 17:30. Then go to the Tu Men Street, where many "Maritime Silk Road" old sites spread in this street, such as Qing Jing Mosque, Temple of Confucius, Temple of Guan Gong and ect. From Temple of Matsu, towards west for about 300 meters, you will find the oldest Arabic Mosque in China - Qing Jing Mosque. From Qing Jing Mosque, towards east for 50 meters is the Temple of Guan Gong. When you finish the visiting of Temple of Guan Gong, just cross the road to take bus No. 7 to Gym Station (CNY2.5 per person), you will reach the Quanzhou Maritime Transportation Museum. After visiting the museum, take bus No.32 to East Street (CNY2.00) from the opposite of the Museum. When you get down the bus, towards west to have a walk for about 500 meters, you will find the Kai Yuan Temple – the biggest and most famous temple in Fujian province. It opens from 8:00 to 17:30 and the admission fee is CNY10.00 per person.

Besides the above temples and sites, you can visit the Chao An Temple - one of the only two Manichean temples in the world, another one is in Iran. Also the Chong Wu Ancient Stone City and Qing Yuan Mountain are all worth visiting for planning another one-day tour.