Sanya

I wondered if there was any significance to Dragonair playing a version of 500 Miles on the Chinese Qin as we landed. I was certainly further away that that from home. Sanya's (三亚) airport looked modern but the plane did not taxi to a skybridge but delivered us to a bus which drove to an older building. This turned out to be the international terminal and the newer, bigger one was the domestic terminal. Said something about the relative volumes of traffic.

Here I encountered the first delay, a group of Russian tourists waiting to get their visas. Hainan (海南) is one of a few places in China that can issue a visa on arrival. There was no discipline; everybody crowded around the counter. It's a wonder the clerks worked through all the applications as fast as they did, as they also had to take digital portraits in addition to the passport photo attached to the form. Surprisingly they were put out when I paid the fee in 160RMB instead of 20USD, because they had to make change for me. It took an hour to get a visa. I suppose it saved me time sending my passport to the Sydney consulate and a bit of money.

Next hurdle was to find bus 8 to Dadonghai (大东海).  There was no sign of any public transport outside the terminal. I asked and people pointed me in the direction of the domestic terminal, saying you can't miss it.  At the domestic terminal I saw a commercial shuttle service counter and hopped onto the minibus. After a while, one of the girls on the bus, who was probably a worker getting a lift home, said this bus might not leave for a while, maybe you might want to try the public bus. Ah, so that's what the sign Public Bus 100m was about.  Road traffic was very quiet but buses were frequent.  Unfortunately they wanted exact change, 5RMB, so I had to first buy a drink from a hawker to get change. Change seemed hard to come by here.


The bus picked up passengers going through the city and got rather crowded. Fortunately I had no problems spotting my stop and the backpacker hostel.

Municipal facilities and roads were in good condition, though dusty due to construction, more on that later.  Coconut palms were everywhere as you would expect of a subtropical island. The biggest surprise is that Cyrillic is on signs everywhere in Sanya and almost any Cacausian you see is probably Russian. This is because Sanya has been a stomping ground for Russians for many years. The businesses here are the usual ones: restaurants (I smiled when I saw the Cyrillic PECTOPAH signs), bars, gift shops (pearls, fabrics, tourist bric-a-brac), fruit stalls, and of course agencies selling timeshare accommodation. Everybody seemed to be selling something. Women balancing twin baskets of mangos prowl the streets. That evening I saw two smartly dressed kids, a boy and possibly his sister carrying a guitar selling roses in a restaurant.

After freshening up, I went to the beach. It is very long but the water is a murky though ok to swim in. But the Chinese were just dipping their feet. Chinese in general are not very fond of sea swimming.  It was an overcast day, but plesantly cool at 20C with breezes.

Fruits found here include all the usual tropical ones, e.g.: jackfruit, coconut, mango, pineapple, watermelon, rambutan, dragon fruit, guava, carambola and of course banana.  Some are imported, for example the durians come from Thailand. I didn't want get messy with fresh jackfruit, fragrant though it was, so I bought a bag of jackfruit chips which were adequate.

In the evening I showered then looked for a dinner place.  The problems were that I first had to decode the menus and even a familiar dish might not be cooked the way I was used to. Sichuan style cooking seemed popular, but not with me. Eventually I let myself be talked into a dish of stir-fried pippies with a dish of lettuce in oyster sauce. It was ok, though the pippies had a bit of grit. It came up to 64RMB, less than $10, but I felt I could have found a better or cheaper dinner if I had tried harder. I also suspect I got charged for extras e.g. the greeter, the use of the shrink wrapped utensils. I wished my sister were here, she would interrogate the waiters and know what to order and we would have a slap up feed, even if it might cost more.

I was worried that I had come too late in the spring and it would be too warm on Hainan, but the night air was cool as I wandered the waterfront, looking at the tourist establishments. The room had an aircon but it was never needed.