Resort Horizon Sanya

... It was a good thing it wasn’t too far from town, because the air conditioning was not that effective either.

They dropped us off at a large shopping center-like building. It had five or six floors, none of which were air conditioned, but was full of merchandise—even automobiles. The good news is that I got my camera fixed there. The technician at the camera counter knew exactly what was wrong when I showed ...

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There are 3 circular buildings being built right beside the port (Phoenix Island) which is going to be a Seven Star Hotel. Looking down the coast, there are lots of other high rises and lots under construction. This port seems to be quite commercial. As in Hong Kong (we did not notice it in Beijing) all the scaffolding around the construction is made out of Bamboo!

We signed up for a half day tour, which was just about right. Sanya was warm ...

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Other than these two excursions, I really just spent my time in Sanya sleeping, eating fruit, applying sunscreen, chatting with people, playing the hostel's guitar that was missing the d-string, swimming, lying on the beach, eating yoghurt, swimming, applying sunscreen, sleeping, swimming, eating street food, sleeping, eating seafood, chatting, lying on the beach, etc. It was exactly the island experience I had been hoping for.

... I passed the time with NPR podcasts while Gabe slept. We finally got into Sanya at around 4 pm, and headed right down the the beach after dropping our bags in our rooms at the Blue Sky International Hostel. (Sidenote: the beds had soft mattresses- weird for China!)

The beach in Dadonghai Bay (Big East Ocean Bay, the section of Sanya where our hostel was) is very funny, because it is a traditionally Russian vacation spot. Many signs are in Cyrillic and ...

Was not overly impressed with Sanya. Sanya is 100% tourist. Mostly Chinese with a lot of Russians. The town is very pretty and the beaches are great. I enjoyed talking with some of the Russians. I guess I did not like the fact that it was one huge tourist trap, not my cup of tea.

... to find some thing to do. They said they would not be to long maybe an hour. Dawn gave him some coupons for Mcdonalds so I thought lets go and have a desert. When we got there he gave me the sheet of coupons and I saw a picture of a shake. I said I would like that. He said ok and ordered two. To my surprise I just order a huge chicken sandwich and a shake. Now I was really full. But that was ok we had time to kill. About two hours later the ...

'I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not... I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic... I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.' -- Jackie Chan to an audience of business leaders on Hainan island.

... for the four of us there and back and he would wait 2 hours. So of we went. Right back past where we came from. Typical cruise ship shuttle. Chris is an anxious traveller. Chris should travel with eyeshades like they give you on planes. Was hilarious how much she jumped every time the driver strayed past the middle of the road (every 100 metres or so). The further we got from the town the more the countryside opened up. Lots of agriculture. What looked like beans ...

... remained a mystery to us. The train was the bolted back together and we trundled across Hainan Island passed banana plantations as far as the eye could see. We were constantly annoyed by young wide boy who kept playing loud music on his mobile phone right next to where we were sitting. At one point another guy went past him with a louder phone and this kicked off a bit of a phone off with the two of them trying to see how's could be coaxed into going ...

... late afternoon to explore the Luihuitou Peninsula. We walked for a while, then took a motor-cycle taxi, which drove us to the two main tourist sites. One is yet another man-made attraction, the statue of a deer at the top of a hill accessible only by a kind of funicular train that goes up the mountain. At Y65 we felt the admission cost was as steep as the train track, and gave it a miss. The other stop was at a lovely beach, very pleasant in the evening among the palms. Our ...