Hainan Island

We’ve just recently returned home from a one-week tropical island holiday.  And to rub it in a little more, we spent two of those nights at a luxury holiday resort right on a beautiful private beach.

There and back, between Guangzhou and Hainan, we took the overnight train.  It is mostly comfortable this way (ignoring the disgusting, overused toilets, the smelly, cancer-causing smokers, and the second-hand, unchanged, beds from passengers who alighted at Guangzhou).  We chose trains both ways that left after dinner, so after boarding we jumped straight into our hard-sleeper beds (which are not at all hard, but rather are three-layer bunks and in contrast to the soft-sleepers which are only two-layered) and drifted off to sleep as the train gently rocked out of the station.  Waking up in the morning, we just had time for breakfast and a bit of scenery-watching before rolling into the station at our destination.

For those who are puzzled about how a train can take us to an island, for the over water part our train is split into multiple sections and pushed side-by-side onto a ferry.  We stay inside our carriages and, deep within the ferry, we don’t even get to see the water.  It is smooth, too, and unless we are observant we may not realise that we are on the water.

We spent four nights at Mama’s uncle’s home in Haikou, which is the main city on Hainan Island.  This was the real reason for us travelling to Hainan—when we move to New Zealand we won’t get much chance to see our Chinese relatives.  So, Mama and the girls spent as much time as possible with Uncle, Aunt, and Aunt’s soon-to-be-married daughter.  Since most of the conversation was happening in Mandarin or, even worse, Cantonese, I was mostly excluded from the family socialising.  Consequently, I got to enjoy some relaxing me-time sightseeing and sunbathing on my own.

If you have read the news lately, you may be aware that just before we arrived in Haikou there was a huge typhoon in the area.  It had moved on by the time we arrived, and the weather was perfect the entire time we were there, but we certainly saw a lot of the destruction and the middle stages of the cleanup.

Trees had been knocked about very badly, and quite a few had fallen over.  But interestingly, it was the foreign trees that had suffered the most damage, and there were comparatively few local tropical trees lying down with their roots up.  The local trees had mostly just lost some of their fronds and were looking a bit roughed up.

Signs, too, had been knocked over.  While in the car, we even saw one huge three-sided motorway billboard that had completely toppled over and crushed itself into the ground.  Most other billboards were bent out of shape and had had their advertisements ripped off.

At Uncle’s home, his building lift had been damaged and for the first couple of days we had to use the stairs.  Luckily, his home is only on the fourth floor, so we weren’t as inconvenienced as many people.  I imagine that it can’t have been too pleasant for those on the higher floors, especially when, during the typhoon, they had no water and no electricity (I hear they took water from the communal swimming pool to flush their toilets).  Sadly, too, the swimming pool at Uncle’s apartment complex was still being cleaned the whole time we were there, so we couldn’t get the use of it like in previous visits (this was my third time in Hainan).

We visited soon-to-be-married daughter’s future apartment.  It is in a new building, and is still just bare concrete inside.  Water was ankle deep in some parts, blown in during the typhoon.

But overall, the typhoon didn’t affect us too much.  Most importantly, we got in lots of beach-time, and, much to Mama’s disappointment, got a bit of colour to our skin.  (What else is there to do on a tropical island?!)  Uncle’s apartment is less than ten minutes walk from one beach.  To be honest, it is a pretty disgustingly polluted beach, but beggars can’t be choosers and us Guangzhou-ers certainly are beggars when it comes to beaches.  So down there we went at every opportunity.  I took a book down there once and sunbathed on my own for a couple of hours.  The girls and I had swims there each day, though Mama didn’t bother.

The local bathers, who looked a little more working class, were intrigued by us foreigners.  I people-watched them, too.  It was interesting to see an old fishing boat come in each afternoon.  One time, a very fit and strong young man was exercising at the beach, energetically pushing the rubbish into piles on the sand before diving into the water, doing underwater headstands and punching the water.  The local children, too, looked like they have a wonderful life, splashing about in the warm water every afternoon.  Most didn’t bother with proper togs, but just wore their usual clothes in or, if they were young enough, stripped off naked.

A somewhat cleaner, but also more crowded (and middle class), beach was a bus ride away, and one day we went there for a very pleasant afternoon swim and picnic dinner.  We heard later that the following day a 20-year-old young man drowned in that same area where we were.  We know nothing about the circumstances except that he was swimming outside the patrolled area.

Our final two days were spent at the previously-mentioned luxury resort.  If you want to know the name, it is Horizon Resort and Spa, in Hainan’s other main city of Sanya.  It is a very child-friendly resort, and many of the guests were Chinese families with a young child.  From what I understand, one of Mama’s connections provided us with two rooms for free for those two days (Uncle and Aunt came along with us, too).  The walk-in price for our non-beach-facing room would have normally been 3500 RMB per night (though Mama tells me that we can book online for about half that price).

(Coincidently, Mama tells me that she has been to Horizon a few times before.  One time was New Year’s Eve 2000.  The funny thing is that during New Year’s Eve 2000, while she was frolicking about in luxury, I was working as a security guard (when one is a poor university student, one grabs any triple-pay opportunities).)

The drive from Haikou to Sanya took around three hours.  On the way there, we got caught in a torrential tropical downpour.  The rain was so thick that we could barely see past the end of the car bonnet.  I probably would have stopped and waited the short time for it to pass, but, once again, the local Chinese proved themselves to be car-driving Jedi masters and we continued on, all making it through alive.

Our room at the resort was nice, but in my opinion it was no better than 200 RMB hotel rooms elsewhere.  However, it was the service and location that we were “paying” for.  On our bedside table there was a little note saying that we can request any one of about a dozen different types of pillow (we were tempted, but didn’t bother).  More importantly for us, the swimming facilities were outstanding.  We probably spent about eight of the 44 hours we were there literally in the water.

Of course, the resort was right on the beach, so a lot of the time we swam in the sea.  The water was warm, clean and very clear.  The swimming zones were patrolled and seemed very safe.  There was a bit of a sand bar that took a lot of the force from the waves, so that it was very gentle for children and inexperienced swimmers (and a bit disappointing for body surfing).

Up from the beach there were a couple of big swimming pool areas.  One of these had fairly gentle water slides, which both Mulan and Miya loved (and Mama even grew to like them, too, once we had pushed her on).  A third pool area, which was supposedly seawater, was dusty dry.

During our time swimming, Mulan gained so much in water confidence and ability.  She can now confidently float and kick along unassisted with her head under the water, and she spent a lot of her time happily ducking down under the water and up again.  When we had to leave, she was so very sad.  Miya, too, loved it, and she kicked herself easily around with her swim ring on.

One of the more curious aspects of the resort was the way they were so strict with the swimming times and places.  We were not allowed to swim in the sea between seven at night and eight in the morning (the lifeguard informed us that the resort was merely following the local government rules, but he couldn’t explain the reasoning behind the rules).  The swimming zones were also very narrow, compared with the available beach space, which meant that at peak times it got very crowded.  Sometimes it was impossible to body surf with the waves, or even swim parallel to the beach, as there were too many Chinese tourists standing around and bobbing about with their swim rings on.  I don’t understand why the resort didn’t widen the patrolled swim zones.  And then not only did they rope off the sides of the swim zone but they also roped off the far end of it.  When the tide was out, as it was on the afternoon we arrived, it wasn’t even waist deep at the end rope!

The resort had a few animals in cages outside, including parrots, peacocks and what looked like llamas.

On the morning we departed, I woke up at about 5:30 and wandered on down to the beach on my own.  When I got there it was still dark and I think I saw only two other people on the beach.  People slowly arrived to see the sunrise and less than an hour later it was completely light.  When Mama and the girls woke, we swam for over one hour before going to breakfast (which was a pretty decent free buffet meal in the resort restaurant).

The return car journey to Haikou was uneventful.  We rested at Uncle’s home for a few hours before catching the overnight train back to Guangzhou.  Just as we did previously, we got three hard-sleeper beds, so Miya slept with Mama.  The train was a little late getting to us (it started in Sanya) so by the time we arrived in Guangzhou it was a few hours behind schedule and we’d had to buy lunch on the train.