Four rings
One inside another.
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Yongding's most famous tulou, the round fortified homes of rammed earth that Hakka families built so a whole clan could live together, called by the Chinese «the King of Tulou». It was begun late in the Ming dynasty and finished in 1709, and it belongs to «Fujian Tulou» on UNESCO's World Heritage List since 2008. It measures 73 metres across and is made of four rings, one inside another: the outer ring of four storeys, 16.4 metres high with 72 rooms on each floor, then a two-storey ring, then a single-storey ring, and the clan hall at the centre, 402 rooms in all. Its earth walls are a metre and a half thick at the base and a metre at the top; the Jiang family built it, more than six hundred people lived in it at its height, and it appeared on a Chinese stamp in 1986. Visitors enter through the main gate, walk the circular wooden galleries and look down from the upper floors onto the rooftops nested like rings; families still live here, selling tea and local crafts. The Gaobei cluster ticket that covers it costs about CNY 50, a joint ticket with the Hongkeng cluster 98 for two days, and it opens from 6.30 am into the evening, per visitor guides.
One inside another.
Around the courtyard.
A metre and a half thick.
Gaobei village, Gaotou township, Yongding District, Longyan, Fujian
Yes, some families in Yongding rent simple rooms inside the tulou, and staying lets you see them quiet in the early morning and evening before the tour buses arrive.
Choices are few in the villages and Hakka cooking uses a lot of pork, so bring food and look in Longyan or Xiamen for restaurants under the halal sign.