Tea and Tulous in Fujian Province

Bike selfie.

Last month, Scott and I decided to take a weekend trip to see China like we've never seen it before: on the seat of a bike.

Country riding. 

Riding in the rain. He's still smiling. 

Our friends Sui and Tom organized a private bike trip through the tea fields of Fujian province, in China's southeast, and to see the ancient Chinese architecture of the Hakka people. They lived in these spectacular round forts, essentially, as a means of protection.

The interior of a Tulou. 

These people didn't want anyone to mess with them; they settled in the mountains of Fujian and then spent years to build these Tulous. It literally could take 10 years to build one of them. When U.S. satellite images first picked up on these Tulous, these mistook them for grain silos.

Built to last -- and let intruders know they're not welcome.

The trip was led by Bruce, a fabulous Australian with tan rugged skin who smoke and drank and still made cycling up long hills seem like a breeze.

This is Bruce. 

Both days we biked about 50 kilometers, or around 30 miles. We rode in rain nearly the entire day, which wasn't as bad as you'd imagine. It beat sweating in the strong sun.

This man told us he was born in this Tulou and probably would die here.

We met Tulou owners, saw faded Mao-era slogans and painted pictures on the side of walls, cycled through a misty bamboo forest, road past miles of tea bushes and tasted many types of Fujian tea. After about 30 cups of tea -- and learning the proper way to sniff it, taste it and swallow it -- I finally found my liking: a tieguanyin, a type of oolong tea, and bought this year's crop, which is sweeter and lighter than some that have been preserved longer. The entire process was fascinating to learn, and made wine tasting seem simple.

Mao-era paintings outside of homes.

A small village in Fujian province. 

So many of the places we saw we wouldn't have been able to access any other way and it gave us a whole different perspective of China: sprawling lush countryside, quiet that I didn't know existed in this land of 1.6 billion people, bright stars and fresh air. I kept telling Scott and the others, "It doesn't feel like we're in China!"

In the misty morning. 

By the end of our 100-kilometer ride, our butts were sore beyond belief and we indulged in airport massages to relieve our aching limbs before returning to Beijing. This was one of the best trips we've ever taken in China, and I hope we can do at least one more with Bruce in the future!