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Published: April 16th 2013
Beihai was once among the ranks of legendary beaches in the world with its sparkling silver sand that was so loose you would sink a little into the beach every time you took a step. Stories have been told where the beach was once so clean that on a sunny day, the beach would be so bright from the reflecting sun rays that everyone would have to wear a pair of sunglasses just to be able to see. A crowd as legendary as New York City's Times Square would be sitting with umbrellas propped up in the sand and people would swim in the ocean that was so clean you could see the sand 50 feet down. Alas, these stories were from ten years ago when times were simpler and pollution hasn't peaked yet. The Beihai beaches now cannot match the legendary reputation that it once held.
Even though it no longer resembles the beach that it once was, Beihai beach is still a very popular tourist attraction, having shops and restaurants on the boardwalk selling large varieties of sea-shell artwork and grilled local seafood for the tourists. The locals roam the area with carts full of freshly picked coconuts
for 10 Yuan(1.61 USD March 31st, 2013) each selling sweet young coconut juice with little umbrellas planted into them. Attractions like dune buggies and rock-climbing are also available at an expense if you're ever bored with swimming. If you're familiar with beaches in the United States, there are two types of beaches; plain beaches - where the primary attraction is the sand and water and then there are boardwalk beaches - where the focus is primarily on entertainment built on top of the beach. The Beihai silver beach is currently a magnificent sand and water beach with a boardwalk under construction. Now, I don't want to over-sell the boardwalk part because although it's under construction, I don't see it becoming exceptionally good in the near future. For the amount of wooden planks that were laid down for the boardwalk, the amount of stores and attractions seem like a joke. The only entertainment I saw were the dune buggies and the rock-climbing. Within the (estimated) 3 kilometer long boardwalk, there were only two bathroom structures and about 20 shops and 5 restaurants with the majority of them being clustered near the main entrance.
While the city is busy spending their
money on the expansion of the city itself, they have lost sight of what brought them there in the first place. Private investors are building high-rise residencies and the government are busy expanding the size of the roads and highways but it is only built to compliment something that is not-yet finished. If the primary attraction of the city was once the glorious beach, more money should be invested in it to first clean the beach and then improve on the surrounding structures. While the beach itself is kept at a prime cleanliness condition, the adjacent street has been the same for tens of years. The buildings across the street from the main gate are crumbling and the restaurants throws the shell of seafood in the alleyways which rot overtime, sending a horrendous smell into your nostrils that you can smell from a distance before you arrive at the beach. The transit stops are marked by signs on a bamboo stick and the taxi rates are inconsistent with each other. Everyone battles for your business and you watch your every step in fear of stepping on rotting seafood or dumped cleaning water. These are not the conditions in which you
would even greet national visitors, let along the hope of ever welcoming foreign tourists.
Now, of course i'm only describing to you the main beach and its immediate surrounding area. If the conditions of the entire city was like that, there would be no visitors at all, which is why no-matter where you travel to, it's always beneficial to have someone who is familiar with the area take you around. Not only do they know the best places to sight-see and shop in town, they also bring you to the best restaurants where you can safely calm your nerves that have been baking with disgust from just moments ago. If you have no guide to follow around here and are visiting out of your own free time with a guidebook that you purchased at the airport for 10 dollars USD, I would suggest you not make a detour just to stop in the Beihai area and instead go to the areas that are more suitable for tourists in the Guangxi province such as the Guilin area with beautiful scenery and iconic hot springs or Nanning, the green city of China that invested billions of Yuan into planting tens and
thousands of trees in the city. If Beihai was on the way to something more interesting, I would say "yeah, stop there and check it out," but you have to go out of your way paying a heap ton in tolls and gas money just to see something that's not worth it.
Fortunately for me, my uncle was familiar with the area and, after seeing disappointment in my eyes, brought us to a restaurant thirty minutes away from the beach that has been in operation for more than fifteen years. The Beihai area, being a major port and surrounded mostly by the shoreline, specialize in a large variety of local seafood that is so fresh the executives of the Subway sandwich chains want to take them to court for using their slogan. All of the seafood on the menu are displayed in large tanks of water as you walk into the restaurant. As they swim around, knowingly realizing their fate, you get to stand in front of them choosing a pound of this and a pound of that for the kitchen to cook up as you wait only minutes in your private room until the food rushes in, all
cooked and steamy and ready for consumption. Using the seafood and crops that are found around the area, the restaurant produces dishes that are so exotic even for my tastes that I had to think twice about touching them. One of the particular dishes that I had a hard time going towards was the raw sand worms. Sand worms are found on the beaches under the sand where the waves crash on to the land. In the United States, I have had dried sand worms which were either made into soup or stir-fried dried until they were crispy and then seasoned with salt and pepper. Now, the option of having it in a sashimi manner was presented in front of me and I suddenly froze in place. Looking at the dish of raw sand worms with fifty percent curiosity and fifty percent disgust, I slowly prepare my mind for the one of a kind experience that is only available on the southern coast-lines of China. With the raw sand worms, the restaurant gives you a dish of 10 herbs, spices, and sauces which you mix all together in your bowl to dip them in. I usually don't use soy sauce
when I eat sushi because I enjoy the taste of raw fish, but this time I mixed the herbs and spices together because I wanted to try it the way the locals eat it and to be honest, I don't know if I would enjoy the taste of raw sand worms. Dried sand worms that are imported into the United States have to be soaked in water and then cleaned thoroughly because there is still traces of sand found inside. There was one time I tried cooking them by myself and I forgot this, so when I bit into it, I felt the coarse texture of beach sand grinding between my teeth. That feeling probably ranks close to teachers running their nails along the chalkboard.
With tremors rumbling down my spine and multiple pairs of eyes staring at me while I reach for the plate of creepy crawlers, I said my last goodbyes to the molars in my mouth and charged at the dish while full throttle. Picking up two worms at once, I rammed them into my bowl of condiments, swirled them around and then closed my eyes as I brought them up to my mouth. Placing it
in my mouth with my eyes still closed, I start chewing until I get a burning sensation that rushes from the back of my throat into my mouth and then goes into supersonic up into my nostrils and out of my eyes. One of the condiments they give you is a stick of prepared wasabi. Now, being a very good friend of sushi, I have eaten fresh wasabi before and I have eaten prepared wasabi from the squeeze tubes and prepared from powder at most restaurants. To me, the flavor of wasabi no longer phases me because I end up using large wads of it every time just to get a hint of flavor into the soy sauce.
That day marked a new chapter in the history books for me because it was time to add a new page in the wasabi books, there are now three classes of wasabi: freshly ground wasabi from wasabi roots, prepared wasabi from tubes and powder, and now to add to the class - colored magma originating from deep within Mount Doom. I have no idea how this wasabi was doing such damage to me that I forgot for a minute that I
was eating raw sand worms. I had only used a small pea sized squeeze of wasabi from the tube and already i'm sweating like it's the first time I have ever tasted wasabi. Sweat was rushing out of the pores on my forehead like Niagara Falls and tears were pouring out of my eyes like I stubbed my pinky toe in the middle of the night. I looked up at the ceiling and stared at the bright white light as I slowly inhaled with my mouth and exhaled with my nose. Ice water is not a popular beverage in China so the only thing I had to wash down this unpleasant experience was spicy soup or a cup of boiling hot tea. Not taking my chances with either of those bad judgments, I reached for the small plate of salted peanuts and began chewing them to numb the flavor of the colored magma. Never in my life have I tasted such spicy wasabi; it was as if the primary spice mixer in this particular wasabi producing plant went on vacation and everyone else forgot about him and they released this batch into the public, not knowing how many tears that
these tubes will create around the dinner table. As the rotating platform of food spun around, I picked off a little from each dish just to get rid of the flavor that was still lingering in my mouth. Not caring particularly about tasting each dish individually at this time, I stuffed everything into my mouth and began chewing like I just rallied at a hunger strike.
After coming to the end of that painful experience, it finally hits me that I have just consumed raw sand worms. Blinded by the wasabi experience, I aim my chopsticks at the crawlers again and put them in my mouth without dipping them into the sauce this time. These small raw sand worms have the texture of crisp cucumber slices with the taste of fresh and meaty calimari without being all that chewy or filled with sand. I was actually surprised that, in their raw form, they are very delicious to eat without dipping them into anything. Although the taste and texture is completely different from the sashimi that I have had before, I will have no problems shoving this into my mouth again in the future if I come across it again.
Through all of this hype about trying something new, I have been scaring myself time and time again. Haunted by past experiences, the hesitation and buildup of fear before trying this was now all just a ludicrous thought. My personality when it comes to food is that i'll try anything new at least once but if the first time experience was bad, I will hesitate to go in for seconds. I have learned, at least partially, that maybe the first time bad experience was a freak event and the second time will restore justice to the food. There is little reason that people in any parts of the world would eat something that tastes bad - there has to be a good reason why someone will put something into their mouths. That's the philosophy I live by every time I visit some place new. Try new things first and if it doesn't work out, move on with your life. Travel 101.
As of April 2013, Beihai is not a very interesting place to travel to. Although AMAZING foods can be found here, it's not world-changing enough for you to drive 3 hours from the city of Nanning just to
sample it. There are great foods all around the world, skipping on a great seafood meal won't hurt you for one second.
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