Blogs from Hainan, China, Asia - page 17

After the Kayak episode, we were ready to head away from Sanya and away from the tourist trap. So we headed off the next day to the Jianfengling Rainforest. It was an interesting journey that took us 4 hours with three different modes of transportation. Geoff and I hopped on a long distance bus to a small town, we thought this would be more relaxing than sitting at the beach. As we were thinking positive about our Hainan experience, the bus driver made us get off several towns early because there was no one else on the bus. So, the bus hostess in her bright pink suit and high-heels escorted us through hawkers and crowds of locals to a "mini bus" to the town we were trying to get to as directed in the Lonely Planet. ... 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

Na al dat reizen waren we op een gegeven moment toe aan vakantie, klinkt misschien raar maar reizen in China vergt ook enige inspanning. We hadden genoeg ploeterende Chinezen gezien, rijstvelden en waterbuffels dus snel en iets eerder dan gepland naar het Hawaii van China: de provincie en tropische eiland Hainan. De eerste 2 dagen zouden we in een boomhut verblijven in een ecologisch boedhistisch themapark. Op zich een goed plan echter niet met de tropische temperaturen en vochtigheid van dit seizoen. Hoewel het Tarzan & Jane hutje er erg leuk uitzag hebben we toch na een nacht zweten en mosquitos gekozen voor het Golden Palm Resort aan het geelwitte strand van Yalong Bay. Lekker een paar dagen relaxen aan de Zuid Chinese zee, het hotel lag prima in een tropische tuin vlak aan het strand ... read more

A few pretty significant events have happened in the last couple of weeks here in China that (fortunately) I was not apart of, but could have very well been. The first occurred a few weeks ago when a fairly severe typhoon struck the island of Hainan. This was just one week before we went there for our vacation. Luckily the storm did not disrupt any of our plans and we had a great time. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Secondly, the Olympic torch landed in Sanya, Hainan last week. We were not aware of it at the time, but we were in a hotel overlooking the airport where initial ceremony was held. Unfortunately, we left the island the day before the torch arrived so we did not see anything exciting. The final event ... read more