Yalong Bay

I had to get out of Dadonghai and see more of Sanya. David, a Hungarian in the same dorm, suggested renting a couple of bicycles. Chris, the hostel owner, said he had no working bikes but could tell us where to rent them. It seems you can also rent electric bicycles, useful for uphill stretches. However when day broke, David was still asleep and I was hungry so I went looking for breakfast.

Early morning is the best time in Chinese cities. There was a cool light breeze. The streets were clean because the sweepers had just been. The crowds had not started and people on the street were mostly workers starting their day.


I found a small family restaurant in a side lane and had a steamer of jiaozhi, like lunch yesterday. This was accompanied by a cup of fresh soy milk from another stall.

On return to the hostel David was up. I said I would be taking the bus to Yalong Bay since the day was windy and overcast and it might rain. I found the service easily and 40 minutes later we reached the end of the route.

Yalong Bay (亚龙湾) is occupied by large resorts who have staked out various sections of the beach front. There is a public section where water sports and excursions to view the reef are offered. The crowds were thick here but the only people swimming was a Caucasian and an Asian couple, all the other people just posed at the water's edge. I walked all the way to the end of the beach until a military no trespass sign.

Lunch was a cob of corn, a stick of grilled squid, some boiled groundnuts and a handful of fresh jackfruit from the hawker stalls in the car park.

The hawker women wore scarfs, maybe they belonged to a minority, non-Han ethnic group in Hainan. They seemed curt and grumpy, maybe they still were sore about the Hans encroaching on their island all those centuries ago. Or they were tired of tourists asking the same questions all day.


Then I rode the bus back to Dadonghai and looked at a department store selling luxury goods. Customers were very thin on the ground; it was the off-season. I got a bottle of Coke Zero and a doughnut. I couldn't find a good coffee in Dadonghai. Imported foods like chocolate and foreign biscuits are expensive.

Back at the hostel I napped until evening then took a walk up the hill towards Luhuitou (Deer Looking Back) Hill. I never got there, it was further than I thought, but I got part way up the hill. Unfortunately views of the bay were obscured by the hotels.

David and I went for dinner in the same lane where I had breakfast and we had some meat BBQ sticks, and roasted eggplants. They were tasty but sauce was too liberally applied for my taste. In general I found salt overused in cooking here. David taught English in Shanghai and was taking a break. We talked about the futures of Russia and China.