Friday, December 12, 2008

Kaiping

About 150 km from Guangzhou, Kaiping is a place full of fortified towers called Dialou. These towers were built by rich merchants as housing and protection from bandits. They started building them from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and kept building them till about the 1930s. There are about 1800 of these 'castles' left and they are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The locals have started to commercialize them and villages have an entrance fee to see up close.

We visited them recently on a trip to Guangzhou, taking a dick si to Kaiping for the day. Well worth the trek if you're in or around Guangzhou.

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