Why this ride
A 483 km round trip from Fengzhou - roughly 6 h 20 in the saddle. It goes by way of Sites of Dehua Kilns, Fujian Tulou and back through Sites of Dehua Kilns. Expect gradients and long views.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions and Fujian Tulou
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 483 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 20
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions
Before the sailing season, officials and merchants climbed a hill above Quanzhou to ask the gods for wind. The Jiuri mountain inscriptions, carved on cliff faces and boulders between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, record these prayers, and they are among the most unusual documents of China's maritime past. They were written by local officials of the Song dynasty, and they appeal to the sea gods and to the spirits of the mountain to send a favourable monsoon, so that the trade ships bound for Southeast Asia, India and Arabia could set out in safety and return. Standing before a rock face carved with neat columns of characters, you are reading a note that someone left when the world's biggest port was run by hand and weather.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is where the day begins. Next is Sites of Dehua Kilns.
2. Sites of Dehua Kilns
Dehua, a county in the mountains of Fujian province, in south-eastern China, has been making porcelain for over a thousand years. Its white porcelain, known in the West as blanc de Chine, is famous for its pure, creamy white colour and its fine figures, especially statues of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, and other Buddhist and Taoist figures. The ancient kiln sites of Dehua, including long dragon kilns built on hillsides, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, inscribed in 2021.
Read the complete Sites of Dehua Kilns write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sites of Dehua Kilns comes up about 95 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fujian Tulou.
3. Fujian Tulou
Picture a giant ring of rammed earth, three or four storeys high, with almost no windows on the outside and a single heavy gate. Inside, galleries of wooden rooms face a courtyard with an ancestral hall at its heart, and up to several hundred members of one extended family once lived within those walls. That is a tulou, and the hills of south-western Fujian are dotted with them, round and square, some centuries old, many still inhabited.
Read the complete Fujian Tulou write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 243 km into the recorded legs you reach Fujian Tulou. Next is back through Sites of Dehua Kilns.
4. back through Sites of Dehua Kilns
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sites of Dehua Kilns write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Sites of Dehua Kilns, late in the day. Next is Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions.
5. Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions to Sites of Dehua Kilns
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions → Sites of Dehua Kilns is 95 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sites of Dehua Kilns to Fujian Tulou
Sites of Dehua Kilns → Fujian Tulou is 148 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Fujian Tulou to back through Sites of Dehua Kilns
Fujian Tulou → back through Sites of Dehua Kilns is 144 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sites of Dehua Kilns to Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions
back through Sites of Dehua Kilns → Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.