Sanjiang Dong Villages Sunset

Timber, towers and lantern light

East of the karst country, Sanjiang is where the landscape gives way to living culture — the villages of the Dong people, built almost entirely of carved timber. The drum towers are feats of traditional carpentry made without a single nail, rising like wooden pagodas above each cluster of homes, and the Chengyang Wind-Rain Bridge is one of the great covered bridges of China, its tiled roof crossing the Linxi River on stone piers.

This is a place that shows its best as the day winds down. In the late afternoon the side-light warms the old timber and brings out the detail of the tower brackets; as the sun goes down, deep blue shadows gather in the eaves. Then the lanterns are lit — rows of warm orange light along the bridge and the tower roofs — and the whole scene becomes a quiet study of warm light against dark wood and water. At dusk the river beneath the bridge holds the lantern reflections like a second string of lights.