Believing they had discovered a ‘group nuclear base’, the US sent in spies who trekked south and inland to photograph the evidence, only to swiftly leave again, embarrassed.

No doubt on entering each ‘reactor’ they were offered noodles and cabbage. The only offensive weapons they discovered were knives used to dispatch chickens and pigs; ducklings scratched on the clay floors of the four-storey earthen fortresses, and tea and persimmons lay drying in the sunshine outside.

The peaceful inhabitants had already lived here for hundreds of years. They had come from the north seeking safety, and war was the furthest thing from their minds.

To visit a ‘tulou’, one of 1500 added to the UNESCO World Heritage list last year, is to step through a portal into another culture, another time zone. Big enough for up to a thousand people, these ‘houses’ are complete villages, compact and efficient.

Sally & Gordon Hammond visited here late 2008.

©Sally Hammond 2009
Pictures: Gordon Hammond