Parting thoughts

My flight wasn't until 2130, which I didn't like because it meant getting into HK at 2300 and at the hotel probably after midnight, but nothing could be done about that.

Chris, the hostel owner, had kindly allowed me to checkout late since there were no other guests in my dorm. So I could leave my belongings in the dorm and come back in the afternoon for a quick shower before catching the bus to the airport. I spent the morning catching up with the blog. At about noon I caught the bus to Sanya's First Market, near the bank of the Sanya River.

At the centre of the market is the main building, containing a produce and wet market, selling meat and fish. It was dim and of course smelt like all wet markets do. There was nothing particularly interesting about this so I exited quickly. Upstairs is a clothing and fabrics market. Again not much of interest there. The streets around had fruit sellers by the roadside or in stores. I bought some bananas; and later some rambutans to compare with those in Malaysia.

I tried a couple of street snacks, a piece of steamed tapioca, quite tasty but floury, and a sticky rice flour ball containing palm sugar and peanuts, wrapped in banana leaves. The latter was messy and left rice starch on my fingers.

Originally my plan was to have lunch in the city and then dinner before going back to the hostel to leave for the airport. I now saw that there was no way I could spend a few hours around the markets. I pondered over this quandry for a while. Recalling the pastry shop I had passed, I decided instead to buy some takeaway food to eat for dinner at the airport before checking in. So I went ahead and had lunch in a fast food restaurant that served fried chicken but also a range of Chinese meals. I finished off with a fresh coconut from a stall.

Maybe it was the load of coconut juice sitting in my stomach, maybe it was also the warm day, maybe it was the anticlimax of the end of the Hainan part of my trip, but I felt nausea thinking about the crowds around the market. They looked like ants swarming purposelessly. All that activity, what for? In hundreds of other anthills that are called Chinese cities similar activities were taking place. Had 4000 years of continuous civilisation come to this? Why did I feel so misanthropic?

At about 1530 I caught the bus back to Dadonghai and went straight to the beach instead of to the hostel. There was a wedding photography session on the sand.

A kite seller walked the length of the beach with his airborne kite leading. A young man tried to interest a mutt in retrieving his thongs but the dog wasn't cooperating.

Chess players were crowding around a game. A restaurant was laid out for a reception, presumably of the wedding party. There was a light breeze blowing. All of this made me feel happier and restored my bonhomie towards the human race. No doubt millions of boring days have passed since humans set up on the planet, but there were and will continue to be moments of pleasure and levity. In such moments, beyond explanation, things feel alright.

Hainan was undergoing explosive change with buildings springing up everywhere. I'm sure it will be unrecognisable to me in a few years. Every morning you can hear the tok tok tok of hammering at nearby work sites. Even late at night, you can see the flashes of arc welding shooting out from sites.

The Chinese are undergoing the most wrenching transformation of their society, trying to make up for centuries of backwardness in a generation or two. Old and new mingle in a strange mixture. You wonder how the young people avoid going crazy. But you never need worry about the Chinese, through hard times and good they will land on their feet. 4000 years of experience as a civilisation counts for something after all.

In retrospect I would have planned my itinerary different. I would start and end at Haikou, which is slightly closer to HK, and take the high speed train down the east coast to Sanya, and visit Wuzhishan and nearby areas as excursions from Sanya, making a J shaped itinerary. Then I would return to Haikou via the HST, which would be faster and cheaper than going down the middle. But I didn't know about the HST when I was planning and Sanya was on my brain from the ads in HK last year.



I caught the bus to the airport, which took some 45 minutes to negotiate the traffic in Sanya's centre. Fortunately I had a seat at the back and didn't have to shift for anyone as the airport was the last stop. I ate the takeaway food and the rest of the fruit as planned. Not a moment too soon it was time to board and head off to HK for a couple of days of retail therapy.

Back to Sanya

Breakfast was a feast. I estimated some 20 or 30 different offerings.

I tried a bit of many things. One thing that I really like without any seasoning or condiment is steamed taro. BTW, that's not me at the counter, hahaha.

I had a nice spot near the waterwheel. I took my time with breakfast, maybe 45 minutes or so.

I filled up the hot water tub for another enjoyable soak. Then I took a walk around the grounds. There were stone statues presumably in the style of the regional ethnic group.

There were many varieties of tropical plants and they were labelled.

There were several clusters of rooms or villas in the resort each having their own swimming pool. Here's one presenting the spectacle of a coconut tree seemingly growing in the middle of water.

The counter clerks were a bit slow with checking me out. They told me to take a seat but didn't process my bill until it was almost time for the shuttle to leave. Chinese hotels have a modus operandi of requiring a deposit equal to your room rate plus some extra for any incidental expenses. A lot of the items in the room are not free but will be put on your bill when they ask the maid through the intercom to do a final check of your room while you are waiting at the front desk. In my case since I paid with a credit card, they had me sign a slip for the deposit when I arrived and then when I checked out, they had me sign the slip for the actual cost then returned the provisional slip to me.

The shuttle was actually 6 seat sedan with a driver and three other hotel guests going to Sanya. For some reason the driver wouldn't put on the aircon and the front passengers had the window slightly down only part of the time. As a result, it was stiflingly warm inside the car, maybe 27 or 28C even though it was cool outside. The heat annoyed me.

About 70 minutes we were in Sanya and just 5 minutes from my first hostel in Hainan. The girl at the front desk was a bit surprised to see me, because I had told only the owner of my return. It was quiet in the hostel and I had the whole 4 bed dorm to myself.

I was quite full from breakfast so I went down to the department store again and bought a coke and a chocolate doughnut for my caffeine fix.

In the evening I decided to have another go at Luhuitou (鹿回头) Hill. I asked Chris how to get there. Apparently I was on the right track the first time, but gave up too soon. But it was also late in the evening then. This time I started at 1730 with about 90 minutes of daylight left.

The core legend of Luhuitou, according to the Li people, is this: A young hunter spots a beautiful golden deer and pursues it for a long time, eventually cornering it near a cliff where the only escape would have to been to leap from the cliff. Just as the hunter was about to let fly an arrow the deer turned its head to look around and turned into a beautiful young maiden. They fell in love with each other, married and lived happily ever after.

Now the variants which I've read elsewhere, which can be mixed in as desired: The hunter was under instructions from the king to capture a golden deer. The hunter chased the deer for 99 days. The hunter took pity on the deer and lowered his bow. The maiden liked the demeanour of the young man. After they married, the maiden rallied her kinsmen and they overthrew the tyrant king. The Li people then set up a tourist park and raked the dollars in. Hahaha, sorry I made the last one up.

The legend no doubt arose from the headland resembling a deer turning its head around. Anyway it's a romantic legend, sniff. Today the hilltop is managed by the Li people who charge for entrance and for riding the people transporters. These painted rocks are scattered around the park. They look a bit Central American I must say.

There were lots of white pigeons and a few "immigrant" grey pigeons at one plaza. Obviously they were also selling birdseed for the pigeons.

That evening, looking for dinner, I happened upon Marcop the Itaian Resauant, er I mean Marco Polo the Italian Restaurant, mentioned in guides. The prices were reasonable and I hankered for a bit of western food, so I ordered a Pizza ai Gambetti (Shrimp Pizza), reasoning that the shrimps would have to be locally caught and therefore fresh. I also asked for a Tsingtao beer.

The pizza was thin crust and very good. The cook, a real Italian living in China, came over and congratulated me on finishing the 25cm pizza. He said that it was a lot to eat, even bigger than the pizzas in Italy.

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.

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.