Day 71 - Finally hitting a highlight in Guangdong (10 weeks late)

Despite having a rather large travelling day ahead of us, we still managed to laze away half of the morning, before finally setting off for the bus station. Our destination today was Kaiping, a town 140km out of Guaungzhou, famous for its Diaolou (watchtowers) that are only found in this area.
After months of experience with buses, the whole process of travelling the two hours to Kaiping went smoothly, and upon arrival we caught a local bus out to Zili Village, where the largest collection (15) of Diaolou are found. The Diaolou in this village were built in the 19th - 20th centuries by overseas Chinese returning home, who wanted to protect themselves and their familes from bandits and wildlife. The Diaolou are made out of concrete, have steel shutters, and are generally between three and seven stories high. The first tower we came across was Fang Clan Tower, important because it was based on the outskirts of town, meaning its inhabitants were the first to spot intruders. Picking our way along the village pathways we came to Yangyian Villa built in 1919, which we thought was existing true to its name ("live in tranquility") amongst the rice paddies and peaceful village.
Although we complained about the cost to enter the village, it was well worth the money, especially given we got to climb to the top and wander around a couple that still contained original furnishings, including family portraits. This gave us a great insight into life in the village over 100 years ago. The first tower we climbed was Yunhuan Lou, built in 1921. The second tower we climbed had its own stock of ammunition in a case with a sign "stones for retaliation" - we 're sure the small rocks would scare away any army! The village also contained beautiful villas, in the same semi-European style as the diaolou, overall producing a significantly different village environment than what we've seen in China so far. The last sight from the village was Zhulin Lou - meaning "The Tower in the Bamboo Grove" - which was literally nestled in amongst rice paddies and its own little bamboo forest! After nearly three hours of enjoying the village we returned to the small coountryside intersection where we waited on the side of the road for a bus to take us back to Kaiping. Along the way we witnessed suicidal spiky caterpillars zooming across the road like we've never seen caterpillars zoom before! Once the bus arrived, it took us to a completely different bus station, which in the end turned out for the better as the bus was cheaper from there, and it dropped us much closer to our hostel. Back at the hostel we dined on 2-minute noodles and veges (again), before treating ourselves to icecreams from "Your Friendly Local Store" just up the road.

Adlibing to the top of the Diaolou.