Hainan Island

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So for some reason China let us back into the Mainland...lucky us. Anyway getting out of Hong Kong was a bit of a nightmare, Hong Kong is not really made for bikes and neither is their public transport so had to take a ferry and a train but eventually made it and got the biking trip back on track.

The first thing that we noticed about Hainan was the HEAT, man it was hot. After getting dumped by the train 25km from Haikou (the capital) we road into town and by the time we arrived we were both in full body sweats even though it was completely flat and we were taking it pretty slowly as we weren't entirely sure where the hostel was. And to make matters worst, when we turned up there were these two guys who were training for some triathlon who after going for a ride on there very cool bikes didn't even look tired or hot.

The next day we set off for our week long ride to Sanya, half way around the island, dress appropriately in clothes from head to toe, you wouldn't want to get a tan or anything, pastey white is the way of the future! (its almost impossible to get sunscreen that doesn't have whitening cream in it and all the shop attendents laugh at us when we pick up the whitening stuff and won't let us buy it). But the riding been very pleasant, spending some of our time on the expressway (which we are not sure if we are actually allowed on) and some of the time on the minor roads that go closer to the coast. But there is hardly any traffic so its actually very pleasant riding on the expressway, sometimes more so than the minor roads because at least everything is going the same way.

We stopped for abit of R&R at a lovely little beach town which had this random little island less than 100 metres from the shore where all the other tourists paid 50RMB to catch the boat to and then all sat on this island together, Katherine and I were too cheap to do this so we walked down the beach a bit and went swimming all by ourselves, the chinese really like to play follow the leader. We though we were so clever until I found a couple of massive jelly fish and then understood while noone else was swimming and figured thats what everyone had been trying to tell us. But was great everywhere had containers full of fish and you just pointed at the one you wanted and they bought it out, they whole thing, and the best thing as it was cheap as chips.

We cointued on our merry little way, now going at snails pace as it was almost 35 degrees, and made it to Yalong bay, the really flash area which had hotels costing on average 1400RMB and all had private beaches so the riff raff (ie Katherine and Jane) could not ruin their fun so unfortunely we contined the 10km into the main Sanya town area where we could actually afford to stay, way better value for money. But this whole town was either chinese or russian tourists and of course us, so everyone just assumed that we were russian so talked to us and gave us menus in Russian, we got very used to looking at people blankly and saying "english" before pointing at things again. We are now pros at miming what we want, well actually not quiet pros as only about half the time do we actually get what we want.

At this point the weather turned bad but it was great timing, just as we were heading inland. We made our way to Wuzhishan which had the island biggest mountain nearby (1784 metres) which we climbed. Although at this point we had just assumed it was going to be lovely and sunny so hadn't bothered to take warm clothes. So where half way up the mountian when it was pouring with rain and pretty cold, we contemplated turning back but noone else was (and they had worse trekking gear than us - work shoes and jeans) so we continued to the top. Unfortunately at the top it was very foggy so couldn't see much, but the bush was lovely. We made it back to town feeling very pleased with ourselves, one we were alive with no hypertherma and the other we managed to do the 8 hour walk in under 5 so had time to visit some other villages on the way back BUT the next day we were so sore and could hardly walk. We might be relatively fit but haven't done much hiking in ages and really should have taken it a bit slower rather than actually running up the hill.

But the funniest thing was we meet this women walking up the hill that thought she would walk and talk to us, even though we didn't speak the same language. Anyway, when ever we tried to have a rest and sit down, she would yell at us and physically pull us up off the ground. So we had to walk all day without sitting, but the track up the hill was really steep, lots of using your hands and climbing up ladders so you were forever touching the ground so we don't understand why she wouldn't let us sit and rest, maybe the snakes? So strange.

But from here the rain and cold contiuned so we were pleased to make it back to Haikou and catch the ferry to Beihai on the mainland.

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Comments

[Mark Valentine]

Great stories! Looking forward to hearing about the rest of this amazing trip.