Blogs from Sanya, Hainan, China, Asia - page 8

Hainan Island is lush and green. We biked through pretty rural areas. Here's a selection of some scenes from our route. Can you believe I actually got off my bike to take photos?... read more

The last 5 days in Sanya were rainy and cloudy so we decided to give the Nantian Hot Springs another go. We went to the same hostel to see if anyone else posted interest in going as a group to the hot springs. Thankfully, we met a couple Agnus (from Poland) and Thomas (from Germany) who joined us with Cat. Also Mark mentioned that his wife had made a sweet deal with a taxi driver to drive 5 people to the Nantian Hot Springs for 300 RMB including entrance fee and a ride back. SO we all thought it was a good idea to negotiate with the taxi drivers first and see if we can get a better price than going with the hostel package. Well it took us an hour to negotiate 600 RBM for ... read more

Palm trees and white sand beaches combined with lots of noise and the fact that it’s a little dirty reminds you that you are still in China despite being in paradise. This sums up our beach destination at Sanya. In fact, the staff at the Blue Sky Youth Hostel greet you with, "Welcome to Paradise!" Sanya is also a popular destination for vacationing Russians and the city is geared towards this population of tourists. This was easily determined when most often we were approached by vendors and hawkers speaking Russian first and then realizing we didn't understand, if they could, they spoke in Engish. An interesting mix of culture nonetheless. The colourful, and matching floral outfits worn by Chinese love birds created a vibrant scenery at the beach. The main beach Dadonghai is beautiful. The water ... read more

4 October 08 Okay, so we travelled 1127 km on a train from Guangzhou, across the sea to Hainan to fly a 5mtr power kite on the beach at Sanya. As our train drew further south we left behind the 36 degree heat of Guangzhou and woke to dull weather for the first time since Lijiang. The train bumped on until it came to a standstill at the end of China and we wondered how we were going to get over the sea to Hainan. I thought that maybe it would be a bit like going over to Lindsfarne when the tide was out, Chris thought it would either be a tunnel or a bridge. Neither of us were right. It appears that the train carriages are unhooked and each carriage is pulled onto a large ... read more

In four short days, I received the worst sunburn of my life, witnessed a baby being flung about the ocean like a pool toy, observed the differences between island and mainland life, basked in the clean air of the least polluted city in China and learned a thing or two about myself. Just call it a typical vacation in China. May 1, International Labor Day, is a national holiday in China. Last year, we were given a week of vacation. In the past that was the norm- a week for National Day in October, a week for Labor Day in May, and a week for Spring Festival, or as we call it in the West, Chinese New Year. However, this year the government is experimenting with a different holiday allocation system. The May holiday and October ... read more